How Cherry Bombe pivoted from an in-person conference to an Instagram Live event

Cherry Bombe, an indie media brand focused on women and food, has held an annual conference called Jubilee in New York since 2014. This year’s event was scheduled for April 5 at the Brooklyn Expo Center. Tickets were approximately $250 per person and weeks out, there were already 700 confirmed attendees—which would have been the highest attendance to date. But as the coronavirus pandemic took hold it became clear to founder Kerry Diamond that Cherry Bombe's Jubilee would have to be postponed. The brand—which has also held Jubilee events in San Francisco and Seattle—knew it could reach a larger virtual audience, and annnounced that Jubilee 2.0 would be held on Instagram Live April 5. Instead of about 15 speakers, there were 64 throughout the day, including Padma Lakshmi, Ina Garten and Drew Barrymore. Milkbar’s Christina Tosi, the first speaker at the first Jubilee in 2014, did a version of the baking club she posts on Instagram. The digital event reached 180,300 Instagram accounts. The online event was free, backed by sponsors including Kerrygold, Jane Walker by Johnnie Walker, Maple Hill Creamery, Rioja Wine, American Express and Resy, which had been on board for the in-person version. A portion of sponsorship fees was donated to the Restaurant Workers Community Foundation, World Central Kitchen and the Freelancers Union, says Diamond. Cherry Bombe’s Jubilee is one of several events focused on women that was quickly re-thought due to the coronavirus pandemic. Girlboss Rally is also switching to an online format. “We’re all struggling to figure out what does this mean for the future of our businesses,” Sophia Amoruso, founder of Girlboss, told Ad Age in a video interview last month. And SHE Media has announced a lineup of nine free #BlogHer virtual events running through the end of 2020. Cherry Bombe still envisions an in-person Jubilee. “I have a hard time sort of conceiving of a world without live events,” says Diamond. Here, she discusses how the April 5 event evolved. This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity. When did you decide to move to an online event? When we knew that we had to postpone. We thought in the meantime we could figure out a virtual conference. We didn’t put a date against it. I had absolutely no idea what that would mean to put something like that together. We began doing Instagram Live events on March 16. A light bulb went off that week—we could move Jubilee to Instagram Live. It’s so immediate. Almost everybody has access to Instagram. We said we have no idea what this means, but we’re going to go for it. Jubilee 2.0, taking place on Instagram Live, was announced March 20. Can you tell me about the technology updates, if any, you needed to put in place? That was the beauty of Instagram for us and the attendees. You didn’t have to download or master anything new, although several of the participants were new to Instagram Live. We figured out how to patch guests in. We put together a little guide for them and did tech tests with people. Also, I soon realized a box duct-taped to a table wasn’t going to work for me. I bought a little tripod so that I could have it for my apartment. How many viewers did you track the day of the event? We asked people to RSVP even though it was free, and asked who they’d like to hear from. We got 4,349 RSVPs from every U.S. state and 63 countries. There were 180,300 Instagram accounts reached on Sunday, according to Instagram, and that was just through our own Instagram account. More than half the content took place on our participants' Instagram accounts. The reach was beyond what we imagined. Do you plan on having any follow up online events? Yes, we’ve already started working on virtual Jubilees for the third quarter and the fourth quarter. And we’re doing an after-party for Jubilee 2.0 on Zoom. What advice do you have for others who have events planned over the next few months? We’ve done live events for years but digital events are a brand new thing so it really helped that we got our feet wet. Run a lot of tech tests. Find a way to use your digital events to help and showcase your community. They need it now more than ever. One thing I learned years ago from [marketing professor] Scott Galloway is don’t try to force the medium to do something to suit you. Do what’s organic to that medium. No one wants to see something scripted on Instagram Live. Ad Age wants to recognize women in the advertising, marketing and media community, even during these challenging times. We are keeping Women to Watch open for nominations, as we believe it’s still important to find ways to celebrate and stay connected. In light of current events, we have extended early-bird pricing until April 21.

How Cherry Bombe pivoted from an in-person conference to an Instagram Live event

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