What News Publishers can learn from the Flashes and Flames Monetising B2B Information and Events Conference
Metaphors, messaging and more from Colin Morrison’s annual festival of insights.
It’s conference season here in the UK, so I’m treading the fine line between post-event networking drinks and next-day breakfast-event croissants. In my twenties, I would have zipped from venue to venue, sipping aperitifs like some petulant rock star, caring not for written notes or presenter quips. But now, all I do is update Substacks and socials with my post-event analysis.
What went wrong?
As someone who has mainly worked in B2C all my life, it’s been a while since I entered the B2B domain. But with the renewed focus on paywalls and subscriptions in the news industry, I thought I’d pop along to Stationers’ Hall in London to find out how the biggest players in the B2B information and events space were growing and maintaining audiences.
I could have scraped the transcripts that were available from the event. I could have used AI to craft you a masterly-looking report. But instead, you’ve got me, three drinks down, typing wildly with off-the-cuff observations. If you want a more sensible approach, talk to me tomorrow morning over a floppy-looking pain au chocolat.
Let’s dive in.
It was refreshing to hear from delegates that many do not have the fear around AI that we often hear in the publishing space. This is primarily due to the fact that many B2B businesses are more diversified, with live events and adjacent premium information products. The lesson here for news publishers is perhaps: don’t put all your eggs into one content basket.
How can B2B publishers monetise podcasts? We had a fabulous masterclass with Peter Houston and Esther Kezia Thorpe, who took us through their observations. The answer is: yes, you can monetise niche podcasts, but you really need to drill down into the exact value of your podcast and what kind of package you can offer potential sponsors. Some great learnings here.
Immediately following that session was another masterclass on squeezing maximum value from your live conference footage. Rich Hewes from Subthread did a great job showing us that video production and distribution don’t have to be expensive — you just need to be intentional about what you are going to record. How many events have you been to where you see cameras rolling but very little footage online afterwards?
“Quality journalism comes at a price and should be paid for.” That was Kevin Costello, Haymarket CEO. I know we hear this a lot in news publishing, but it was great to hear it again in the spectacular surroundings of the livery hall. One thing B2B figured out years ago: there is no long-term business model for commodified news.
“AI is moving from promise to performance.” That’s Kevin again.
“People don’t go to events anymore for commerce and networking. They want to have fun!” That was Douglas Emslie, chairman of Cuil Bay Capital and Raccoon Media Group. It was really interesting to hear his take on the “festivalisation” of events, where people want to mix work with leisure. This sounds a lot like a running event my brother goes to every year, where you — yes — run, but also drink beer along the way.
Sounds fun, but also a little precarious.
Moat, moat, moat. Perhaps the biggest buzzword of the day, but no less critical. If you don’t have a point of difference in the market, or you are just very bad at communicating that point of difference, you might as well pull up the drawbridge and turn the knights out. That’s it, medieval metaphors exhausted.
“Trust” was hammered a lot — but I couldn’t remember any funny quips, so let’s just accept that it remains extremely important.
There was a lot of talk about MCPs and investing less in the desktop GUI experience in favour of APIs. In the future, when you switch on your laptop and your preferred agentic workflow AI is ready to get crackin’, this seems like an entirely sensible approach. But agreeing on a properly monetisable model for MCPs doesn’t seem fixed yet. There were also concerns that, although MCP seems to be the future, there will be fewer opportunities to track what the audience actually does with your data than with a GUI interface.
“Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” That was Julie Harris, CEO Expana, using a wonderful Mike Tyson quote in reference to the impact of AI.
“Trust is a compounding currency in B2B.” I really liked that.
Someone referred to the future “unicorn” of a business as someone who heads up AI but also understands all areas of the business, from sales to marketing to product. They will be a “Swiss Army knife”.
The Warren Buffett quote was used: “You can buy anything with money except the one asset people value most — time.” In other words, if you can save people time, they will pay for it. This was used in reference to live events, where you can offer paid extras like queue-jumping — otherwise known as speedy boarding — or spaces at events where attendees can work.
“As a live event organiser, we are an outcomes business, bringing buyers and sellers together. The role of our publication is to turn that experience into a 360-day experience.” I loved that way of thinking.
That’s it for now, folks. I even got to wear my very own Stationers’ tie, which comes out of the wardrobe once a year. I also have many other ties, so if that’s the kind of premium content you desire, please consider becoming a paid Substack subscriber.
