What If I Don't Know Anyone?

There's one message I get more than any other in the run-up to Ideas Fest.

It isn't about the line-up, or parking, or whether there'll be decent coffee (there will).

It's some version of this: "I'd love to come, but I won't know anyone."

I get it. I've stood at the edge of plenty of events myself, holding a drink I didn't want, pretending to read my phone, working out which group looked least likely to mind me hovering nearby.

So after this year's festival, when hundreds people told us honestly how their two days went, I went looking for the ones who'd come on their own.

There were a lot of them.

Why it's different in a field

I don't think the people who come to Ideas Fest are magically friendlier than everyone else. I think the setting changes how people behave.

Put people in a conference hall and they act like people in a conference hall. Lanyards, elevator pitches, eyes scanning over your shoulder for someone more useful.

Put the same people on grass, with music somewhere in the distance and nowhere in particular to be, and something shifts. Their shoulders drop. They sit down. They talk to whoever is next to them.

The book on the table

One story sums it up better than anything I could write.

Late on day two, two people who'd just started their business wandered into the festival bookshop. They'd travelled up from the Isle of Wight, had an amazing two days, and were completely overwhelmed. Too many talks, too many ideas, too many people telling them what they should be doing.

They got chatting and picked up a book from the table. They had no idea the woman standing next to them had written it.

She noticed how lost they looked and asked if they wanted to step outside. She listened, then helped them strip everything back to the few things that actually mattered.

When they realised who she was, they laughed. They told her it felt like fate, and that they wanted to work with her.

Nobody introduced them. Nobody planned it. Three people just happened to be in the same place, with time to stop and talk.

So, what if you don't know anyone?

Honestly? That might be the best way to come.

When you arrive with a group, it's easy to stay with your group. When you arrive on your own, you're open. You say yes to the spare seat at the table. You end up in the conversation you'd never have had otherwise.

More than seven in ten people at Ideas Fest this year were there for the first time. Plenty of them came alone. Nobody stayed that way for long.

If that's the thing holding you back, let it go. Come on your own. Sit at a table with strangers. Say hi.

You'll be in very good company.