YouTube’s Summer in the City

katie.moore

OMG Selfies and deafening screams came from the Excel Center in London this weekend. Yes that’s right, YouTube sponsored event ‘Summer In The City’ has been and gone for another year, and what an event it was!

Summer in the City is the UK’s largest YouTube convention bringing together creators, fans and brands. This year saw over 10,000 YouTube fanatics queuing up over the weekend to meet some of their favourite British YouTube stars. Whilst waiting for their turn, fans could also get involved in an array of activities, from rides to live mic opportunities, or just catching up with friends or YouTube experts in the swanky beanbag area.

We Are Social has been working with YouTube this year to raise awareness of the event, with a focus on the ‘grande finale’ – the big photo opportunity that closes out the evening, where fans and YouTube stars gather together for the camera. It’s the ‘big social moment’ of the evening, and YouTube asked us to make it as talked about as possible on social channels. In order to gain maximum buzz, we took quite a traditional approach. Recognising that on the day people would be having too much fun to spend time looking at their phones for prompts, we created pocket-sized Call to Action cards, informing fans when and where they needed to be for the BIG pic, and of course reminding them of the event hashtag.

Free sunglasses and sweets, YouTubers aplenty, it can only mean one thing – the return of Summer In The City. #SitC #SitC2015 #youtube #youtubers #sunglasses #candy #pastels #bbloggers #lbloggers #fbloggers #vloggers #YouTubeSITC #danandphil A photo posted by Saireybearey (@sairey_bearey) on

With 12,000 cards in the hands of fans and a social production team on site to capture the moment, we were ready. And it paid off – mentions of the event increased by +375% on the previous year, and the biggest spikes in conversation mentions online were mostly centered around the grand finale.

An awesome result, and we’re most definitely looking forward to the next one in 2016! To check out more of the event, simply follow the hashtag #YouTubeSitC.