Demos Helsinki - Untitled Festival (2020) - Production

UNTITLED was a large-scale hybrid festival run by Demos Helsinki and the UNTITLED alliance. The project aimed to collectively reimagine society, create an agenda for ecological and social transformation and experiment on executing it.

I worked as a co-producer and one of the curators of the festival, hosted by Demos Helsinki. This was a unique experience that brought together a diverse, talented, and hardworking team.

My role was multifaceted:

• Co-produced the festival
• Curated the art program
• Acted as the technical producer for the online event production.

The pandemic reshaped the entire event landscape, and the Untitled Festival was no exception. Originally envisioned as a more traditional festival or symposium, our plans were continually evolving as the pandemic unfolded throughout the year. in the end we had 388 participants from 25 different countries.

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Adapting to Changing Realities

The scope of the pandemic was shifting sometimes on a weekly basis. We initially held on to the idea that we could organize an onsite event for a limited audience. I had already planned the physical infrastructure of the event in great detail—drawing maps, designing the layout of tents and seating to comply with social distancing regulations.

However, just a few weeks before the event, the regulations changed again. This led to one of the most intense work periods of my life as we radically altered our plans and shifted towards an almost entirely online festival with a reduced onsite audience. It was during this time that we also changed the venue to better accommodate this hybrid approach.

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Designing the Online/Offline Hybrid Event

2020 was the year when many online event technologies truly emerged, and we were fortunate to be able to experiment with a range of tools to deliver a complex, high-quality hybrid event.

I worked closely with our team to combine an online event platform with professional media broadcast technologies.

The blueprint I designed had to account for

• multi-room, multi-camera set-ups and connections, and
• seamless integration between onsite and online hosts.
• We also combined traditional conferencing tools like Zoom with event platform called Hopin —though in 2020, these pipelines were far from fully tested.

The live audience added another layer of complexity to the technical setup. We had to ensure not only that the media production was professional and well-integrated but also that we adhered to strict social distancing regulations onsite.

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Collaboration and Execution

I proposed the technical blueprint, which was finalized by a very capable tech company that we hired to execute the backend infrastructure. The online event backend was also in the hands of an experienced team who ensured that everything ran smoothly.

In the end, the hybrid format allowed us to host a meaningful event in a challenging time. The experience greatly reinforced my skills and apperception of adaptability and technical ingenuity in the face of an ever-changing environment.

Conclusion: Reflecting on the Production Challenges

Producing the Untitled Festival during a pandemic was one of the most demanding projects I’ve ever worked on. The challenges we faced—from the constant regulatory shifts to the technical complexities—taught me an incredible amount about the intersection of live events and digital technologies. It reinforced the importance of flexibility and quick problem-solving in event production, particularly when dealing with hybrid formats.