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Participation at SRCCON 2021

SRCCON 2021 is a hands-on conference, where everyone who attends actively participates throughout the event. Our call for participation form is still open if you’d like to attend SRCCON 2021 as a participant! Just fill out the form to let us know.

Making the schedule together

Our full schedule is live and we couldn’t be more excited. We’ll be gathering over three days, with generous breaks.

Having SRCCON online means that we’ll be able to make the event accessible across time zones and differing circumstances. Each 3-hour block will include some combination of one talk with Q&A, one 75-minute session, and a hobby discussion or social meetup. Not everyone will be able to attend every time session, and that’s okay. As a participant, we want you to be able to come when you can, and step back when you need.

In addition to live sessions, we’ll also have a few pre-recorded, asynchronous talks and sessions as well as a chat space we’ll keep open throughout the event. To help all our participants feel comfortable bringing their whole selves — including their vulnerabilities, none of our sessions, pre-recorded or live, will be publicly available after SRCCON.

Not just attendees, but participants

At SRCCON 2021, everyone participates in some way. Our hands-on sessions rely on participants who are ready to share their experiences and perspectives. Facilitators create space for in-depth conversations, design exercises, demos, and workshops, and participants bring questions and take ideas back to their newsrooms. In addition to sessions, folks help make SRCCON 2021 an inclusive, welcoming place by leading group activities, volunteering, and even just saying hi to new friends and collaborators over breaks and activities.

Our call for participation form has a few questions for you about what you’d like to bring to SRCCON 2021 and how we can support one another. We look forward to seeing what ideas folks have and how we can make them possible during our three days together. As one prior attendee put it, SRCCON “will be a special opportunity to take some of the brightest minds in journalism, data, and community-building to tackle everything that has come to a head in the past couple of months with positivity, frankness, and creativity.”

Inviting participants and allocating tickets

We keep SRCCON events intentionally small, and this online event will be no different. We’re planning for about 300 participants. Even though a physical venue isn’t constraining the size of the crowd this year, the collaborative, interactive nature of SRCCON just doesn’t scale in the same way a talks-only conference can. The relatively small size of SRCCON 2021 means we need to be intentional about equitably distributing tickets and ensuring that there are a mix of perspectives and skills at SRCCON 2021. Our call for participation form will help us understand who would like to take part and what you want to get out of it. With those responses, we’ll work to create a schedule and audience that reflects the dynamic interests and needs of this community.

We review the call for participation forms on a rolling basis, and within a week or so we will let applicants know whether they will be invited to attend. If invited, you will have the chance to purchase a ticket starting at $125 plus fees.

Details about ticket prices

In 2019, we began experimenting with a tiered ticket-pricing system. Accessibility remains a core value for us, and this is our attempt to balance the actual costs of our events with keeping prices as manageable for attendees as possible. We adjusted our pricing structure a bit in response to going virtual in 2020, and we’re keeping that structure this year.

Here are the tiers for tickets to SRCCON 2021 (plus Eventbrite ticketing fees):

In addition, this year we are also offering a free scholarship ticket as one of the tiers. We have a limited number of free tickets set aside for people who otherwise would not be able to attend, in particular for laid off and freelance journalists. We also give priority to people who identify as members of communities underrepresented in journalism and technology, such as journalists of color, and journalists from smaller and non-coastal newsrooms.

Here’s the most important thing to know about these ticket prices: We want you to choose the one that makes sure you can be at SRCCON 2021. We don’t review who pays what, and we won’t follow up with any questions. If you work for an organization where budgets have already been set or there’s not support available to you, choose a lower price and join us. By the same token, if you budgeted for travel costs you no longer have to spend and are able to purchase a ticket at a higher tier, please do. If you’re interested in contributing to a scholarship ticket, please pick the highest ticket tier you can afford. Paying for free tickets and stipends is something we deliberately build into our ticket tier structure.

We based these tiers on community feedback encouraging us to find ways to share event costs. Ticket funds are a huge part of what makes it possible to organize an event with scholarship tickets, stipends, live transcription, and the support of a skilled event team in preparing sessions and constructing a schedule that lets attendees focus on learning and talking together.

If you have any questions at all about ticket pricing, please reach out.

Financial and Family Assistance

We’re offering two types of financial assistance to support your ability to join us for SRCCON 2021:

Get more information on who should apply and how to apply on our Stipends and Scholarships page.

Facilitating sessions

At SRCCON events, session facilitators regularly make up more than a third of attendees. All of our sessions are peer-led by conference attendees—the deadline for proposals this year has passed, but we’d love to hear your ideas for the program next time!

Welcome, first-timers

We think SRCCON events are best when there’s a mix of new folks and veterans. And we want new folks to feel able to participate in whatever ways interest you. There’s a spot on the form to ask for more information if you’re interested in attending but not quite sure how you want to participate. In reviewing forms, we’ll aim to have a healthy mix of newcomers and returning SRCCON participants. So SRCCON alums, you can put your name in without worrying that you’re taking a new attendee’s spot.

Accessibility and access

Accessibility will take shape in this online format in a few different ways:

If you have other access needs, please let us know. We’re doing our best to accommodate as many accessibility needs as we can and will keep attendees updated about adjustments to the program, details about platforms, and how to access all aspects of the event.