2026 Recap - Turns out, a pilot conference organised in less than 90 days can be successful! ​

23 August 2026

Recap's recap ​

• Hard work, and more successful than imagined! 🤩
• Delightful accommodation made us want to stay longer.
• The unexpected stickers, keychains, and speaker gift bags were appreciated!
• The library was a cute venue.
• All the talks were... fire 🔥!
• A day and a half of snow led to connections on (and off) the slopes.
• Humbled by all the good feedback to run it again!

Chapter 1: Friday - Travel & Arrival ​

With the 1st Snow Gum Summit behind us, it was more than the success that I dreamed of! 😍

I say that having I spent all of Friday morning running around like a headless chook 🐓 trying to get everything together, but that's a story for another day...

Maybe the 8 seater hire car wasn't enough for 14 attendees... ​

It was meant to be, until we had some last minute sales...

Kevin graciously offered to pick up and drive a hire car from Sydney.

On booking, I was like "surely this humungous 8 seater Kia Carnival would fit everyone".

So... I wasn't wrong.

BUT, we did start reconsidering after getting 2 last minute sales, now making it 6 people, 4 snowboards, AND luggage.

Thankfully, another attendee offered to drive just in case.

And if you were wondering, you can indeed fit it all in. This was confirmed scientifically, by doing it.

Did the Canberra dinner stop surpass expectations? Yes, except the "fried ice cream"... ​

Given other attendees were making their own way, I thought it'd be nice to organise dinner in Canberra!

We didn't need anything fancy, only a quick pit stop that would double up as a chance for everyone to put faces to names.

It was a good choice, and the food surpassed people's expectations!

Except for one thing. I won't name it to save face, I'll just describe it as a frozen donut ball, in disguise (it didn't fool us, we ate it anyway).

Accommodation was perfect, other than wanting us to stay longer ​

Arriving at our accommodation, we immediately realised we had made a terrible mistake.

This place was too beautiful to only stay for 2 nights, and we wished we had stayed longer.

The newly renovated home had this lovely living area that was exactly what we needed after a long drive down, and gave way to connecting over chats that lasted into the night.

Not only that, but we were welcomed with goodies!

Candy, hot chocolate, and a bottle of wine, none of which were spared.

Chapter 2: Saturday - Conference & Snow! ​

The morning welcomed us with an almost offensive sunrise over the lake as we prepared to head to Perisher for the day. Like, we get it, you're beautiful.

That's nice, but I'm here for the snow! ​

Okay, okay, so we headed straight to Blue Cow, and the conditions were gorgeous! Blue bird skies and some decent snow.

Beginners used it to stack it, and the rest got to shred it down the mountain.

For lunch, we split into two teams:

Team Guthega Basecamp trekked across for legendary toasties. I say "legendary" because I can't personally verify the legend, as I was with...

Team Blue Cow Bistro, who stayed for the views and more beginner friendly slopes!

Once 4pm hit, everyone started to make their way down the mountain and back to the accomm, with enough time to freshen up before the conference opening at 7pm.

I lied, I'm also here for the conference! ​

I'm glad you are!

Chelsea was my little conference elf, helping me with giving everyone swag as they were being checked in.

Wait... you made swag? ​

Yes! For better or worse, but again that's a story in itself...

Honestly, I wasn't sure if people would care. Whether they'd use the keychains at all, or if they'd like the sticker design.

But people appreciating the attention to detail, asking for more, on top of the hard work in the little time I had, is going to be one of those memories that I'll cherish forever 🥰.

You're experienced, so no technical difficulties right...? ​

lol no.

Here I am, being a good citizen, following all the instructions given to me to set up the TV, seemingly only to gaslight myself.

Only because the previous user of the room had followed the exact opposite of those instructions, leaving me with a Sherlock Holmes mystery to solve in 53 seconds.

Then "smart" TV started doing "smart" things...

But it wasn't smart enough to stop the conference from getting under way!

So how were the talks!? ​

Look, either I don't do them justice, OR I make this post 2x longer.

So I'll give them their own post, and give you the short version and some pictures.

• Lineup? 🔥
• Energy? 🔥
• Talks? 🔥
• Questions?

Look, it wasn't just me...

Stacks Pizza > Bacco Pizza ​

As soon as the talks finished, Stacks Pizza was here!

Was it good?

Well in my opinion it's the best pizza you can get in Jindabyne!

(Some would say Bacco, but they're up for sale. So... do with that what you will.)

Wait, how is talking about free will "networking"? ​

Okay, hear me out, it didn't start like that.

Walking around and chatting with slices in people's hands, conversations went from "what did you think of the talks" to "tell me about your work" to "do we actually have free will".

Don't ask me how, but needless to say, I didn't stay for long.

BUT I was glad people were having a good time!

But where on earth were you...? ​

In the cute little Jindabyne Library! There's a whole blog post about how we got to be there.

But my favourite part was hearing "this place is nice!" (and then later realising they were serious).

Why? Well no one took me up on the offer of going to the pub early, AND told me they wanted to stay longer.

So what was this "exclusive custom made swag" you gave to Cool Contributors?? ​

As the booking was coming to a close, I held our conference close to give thanks.

Speakers were gifted silly little "speaker survival packs".

And Cool Contributor Aleksa was gifted a hand made bowl turned from Snow Gum!

Okay, I've heard enough from you. What did the attendees think? ​

We ended with a quick feedback survey. (I say quick here because there wasn't a question on whether there were too many questions.)

Jokes aside, this was to figure out if Snow Gum Summit was to run again, what would need to change.

In the interests of keeping things short, the full results deserve their own post.

But, what you can know now is that, overwhelmingly, people were satisfied overall, would come back next year, and would recommend others to do the same! 🎉

There aren't the words to state how deeply touching and humbling that was. Thank you 🥹.

(And that's not to say there's no room for improvement, everyone's experience should be cared for.)

Chapter 3: Sunday - Pivot & Farewell ​

Forecast promised a blizzard, and it delivered ​

If you were planning to ski after Sunday, you would have loved the forecast.

If you were planning for Sunday, well...

The half that decided to had as much fun as they could until the storm hit at 1pm.

The other half found a nearby cafe to make the most of a friendly game of Uno!

It wasn't perfect. It was perfectly imperfect. ​

That's a saying that's really grown on me since hearing it at Everything Open 2026.

And it's hard to say that it doesn't resonate perfectly, given this aptly named pilot conference.

Were there many mishaps? Yes, but they were only holding us back from absolute perfection.

And for a pilot conference organised in less than 90 days, anything different wouldn't be fair on anyone.

Looking back, you can't say it wasn't stressful flying as close to the sun as I was.

But I can say that I learned a hell of a lot, and hearing all that gratitude has definitely taught me a lot about perfection.

Now what? ​

If any of this spoke to you and made you think "damn... I wish I was there..."

Good news! We're in the middle of planning for 2027!

If you'd love to see it happen, deposit tickets are now open!

Or if you want to hear about future posts, or when full tickets are open, then make sure to add yourself to the mailing list!

See you on the slopes 🏂

Evan.

← All posts