What makes a good gathering?
The first word that comes to mind is jollof rice. I know how that sounds. Stay with me, because it matters more than you'd think.
I started writing this because I just came back from one of our flagship APNI events in Dublin. Every year, I tell our president, Edima, that this one is the best yet. This time, I actually believe it. It wasn't just a good event. It was a good gathering, and those are two different things.
On my way home, I got off the train, and a man stopped me at the station. He'd been at our last HoaQ event, he said. It was pleasant to hear, though the truth is I don’t remember seeing him. There were over 400 people in the room that night, and I go to more events than I can keep track of. I don't organise most of them. I just show up when I can. But he remembered me, and he'd loved it enough to stop me on a platform to say so. That got me thinking. What is it that makes a good gathering?
The Art of Gathering is a book a mentor put me onto. Its core idea is simple. A meaningful event is designed, not scheduled. I'd been running events for years before I read it, but it gave me a way to be more deliberate. And as I keep gathering people, through events, virtual sessions and the occasional Sunday roasts, I've started to want my own set of rules.
This won't all come from one article, because I'm still learning. But here's where I'm starting, based on the last HoaQ event we ran in London.
The first thing is friction, or rather the absence of it. When we posted that event, it took off. Luma flagged it as one of the events to be at in London, and London is not a small place. When Luma points people somewhere, they go. The event was free and came with no expectations. The hardest thing we asked of anyone was their details and a LinkedIn profile. HoaQ is a professional investment community, so we like to know you're a professional before you walk in. We turned almost no one away. The only people we said no to were those who left their LinkedIn profiles blank, which never felt like too much to ask. Six hundred people registered. Around four hundred showed up. It was a night to remember. So the first rule is the simplest:
Make it as easy as possible for people to say yes.
The second is that every event needs a reason. Not an agenda, a reason. We've made a point of keeping our events open. No fixed topic, no programme. People still come up and ask what the catch is, and the honest answer is that there isn't one. We just find ways to pay for the night, usually through sponsors. What a sponsor wants is access to a new audience, and they trust us to bring that audience into one room. Our people are the African diaspora, and everything we say is built to reach them. We're not flawless at the sponsorship game, and I won't pretend otherwise. But sponsors are what keep the door free, and a free door matters more than most people realise.
Our main reason is to bring the African diaspora together, wherever we go
The third rule is that there has to be food, and it has to be ours. Most of our audience is the diaspora, and most of them are here in London, far from home. So we put African food in the room. In comes the jollof. If you've never had it, you're in for something, and it never misses. At the last event, we had jollof, chicken and suya. Things people recognise, and things worth trying for the first time. We've always had people from outside the diaspora come too, and they're as welcome as anyone. The food was never just food. It's culture you can taste, and we carry it with us wherever we set up a room. There are drinks too. One or two on the house for everyone who comes. But the drinks were never the point either.
Rule number three: Make it culturally relevant.
The fourth rule is music, and good music at that. Every year we build the night around a sound, and this year was no different. We went with Afro House, and it was every bit as good as that sounds. But the music is only half of it. Who stands behind the decks matters just as much. This year, we had a few founders of well-known tech companies take a turn, and watching them DJ made them human in a way a panel never could. The room felt it. This experience made our event unique and memorable. The vibe was one huned (a hundred per cent).
Rule number 4: Make it unique and memorable
I read all this back and realised I'd written a recipe for a good party. People call our events parties, and I've made my peace with that. Because when I strip it down, the thing pulling everyone into the room is culture. The food, the music, the people, the feeling that you're somewhere that knows you. Our members come for the culture and stay for more.
See you at the next one.