What I do — Conference
A conference where participants set the agenda
No agenda fixed months in advance. Instead, a day that adapts to what is actually alive.
Who is this for?
- You are organising a professional conference or community event for 30–150 people
- You want participants to leave with real connections and concrete insights — not just a full notebook
- You are willing to let go of control over the content and trust the expertise in the room
- You want a format that adapts to what is alive in the group, not what you planned in advance
Where it’s already worked
Open Space works. Not as theory, but as a format I have facilitated multiple times in comparable contexts:
- LeSS conference Amsterdam — large professional audience, technical community, high expectations
- LeanCamp Brussels — pure Open Space format, self-organising day
- Scrum usergroup Netherlands — community day with mixed audience
- Lisbon (international) — co-facilitated with Steve Holyer, direct student of Harrison Owen
Group size: 20 to 150 participants. Languages: Dutch and English.
What makes Open Space different from a traditional conference?
At a traditional conference, the agenda is fixed. Speakers are booked, time slots are allocated, and participants are audience members. The best conversations always happen in the coffee break.
With Open Space, the coffee break is the programme. Participants propose topics themselves, choose which sessions to attend, and move freely based on where they learn or contribute most. The facilitator holds the process — not the content.
The result: higher engagement, better conversations, and concrete agreements owned by the people who made them.
How does a conference day work?
See the approach page for a full anatomy of an Open Space day — from opening to harvesting.
Formats
- Pure Open Space — fully self-organising, 1 or 2 days
- Hybrid format — keynote or opening, followed by Open Space for the rest of the day
- World Café combination — Open Space for broad exploration, World Café for deeper work on selected themes
- Liberating Structures — activating microstructures such as Impromptu Networking as an opener or connector between blocks