🇮🇹 Summit On Tour III : FAQ
In a few days, the 3rd edition of Summit On Tour starts in Rome. Perhaps you arrive a bit earlier, perhaps you stay a bit longer – I hope that your trip proves to be a combination of professional insights and personal experience. In this issue, we talk about how to make the most of it, and what to prepare for.
The Agenda
The agenda is now on the web You will also find a copy in the printed book called Agenda & Speakers (inside of your attendee bag), so that you can connect the speakers to their sessions; and, moreover, for the first time, we also include a foldable, theater program-style copy that Paul Gardner and Greg Boyd (and anybody else who plans on wearing professor-style jackets at the conference) can carry around in the inside pocket, to consult on the go.
We have 12 sessions and 54 speakers across the two days. If anything, this highlights the collaborative nature of our community: out of 275 attendees, 54 people have put forward significant efforts to present on a variety of topics, doing prep calls and write-ups. This conference is not about superstar speakers with a passive audience in awe of the celebrities on stage; this conference is about a community discussion with a level playing field.
In the Agenda & Speakers book, as well as in the Addendum (last-minute additions), you will find the speaker bios of all the presenters.
The Innovation Day
In the agenda on the website, you will notice that before the Opening reception on April 1, there's an event called "Innovation Day": this is a conference for about 50 Italian creatives (video games, board games, interactive media in general) organized by Lazio Innova and Zagarolo Game City specifically.
If you're in town and you want to attend (it starts at 09:30 and ends at 14:00), please register (the registration is free, but mandatory, as seats are limited). The event will run outdoors, on the same stage that we build for the Summit. Bonus points: at 11:00, there will be a panel with Sean Kane, Peter Lewin, Nicoletta Serao and Francisco de Rugeriis, where we will talk about legal issues that occur during the lifecycle of a video game (thanks to Alexander Schmid for the slides).
The Registration
To access the venue, you need to be on the list (so that the security lets you in through the gates), and then to pick up your badge and your attendee bag at the Registration Desk in the courtyard. The registration starts at 16:00 on April 1, and runs until 21:00 that day. The registration continues from 08:00 to 10:00 on April 2. If you plan to arrive after these hours, please coordinate with Alma.
NB: there is no opportunity to attend the venue before 16:00 on April 1, unless you are registered for the Innovation Day, and we will not be able to issue registration materials prior to 16:00 anyways.
Your Attendee Bag
In the attendee bag, you will find:
- Agenda & Speaker Book, and its Addendum
- Foldable copy of the agenda
- Your conference notebook
- Your badge
- Your ticket to the Industry Dinner (if you booked).
On the registration desk, you will also find:
- All kinds of writing instruments (thanks to our partner firms)
- On Tour III's enamel pins (limited number, free of charge)
- On Tour III's stickers (limited number, free of charge)
- Summit X's stickers (limited number, free of charge)
- Summit IX's stickers (reproduced by popular request; free of charge)
Your Tag
On your bag, you will find a personalized tag with your name on it. This is so that you can leave your bag somewhere at the conference and still find it there when you're back with a cup of coffee. When picking up a bag that, you think, is yours – please check for the name on the tag? This helps a lot when we have 275 attendees in the same courtyard with the same bags (moi? I also sign my name on the cover of the notebook, c'est facile et ça marche).
Your Badge
Your badge displays the type of your segment (red for in-house counsels, blue for law firms, green for executives). If your firm or studio is one of the sponsors, then the badge will also have its full-color logo (thanks for your support!).
Green lanyards (shown above) designate the people who are with Lazio Innova (this also includes some Italian developers invited by the region). Yellow lanyards are for people who make your life better (catering, stage crew, etc.). Black means operations – feel free to ask any of us for help, when needed.
Red lanyard means the attendee has been at the Summit before (any of the years). Orange designates a first-time attendee (so, come say Hi!).
The Running Club
For everything about running in Rome (there will be community runs on April 1, 2 and 3), please refer to this issue of the newsletter:
Sergei Klimov
On April 2, there will be a photographer at the finishing line – so make sure you wear your most favorite running shirt (or your firm's branded shirt, if you want to ease travel budget approvals for Summit On Tour IV in 2026...).
The Weather
As of now, we expect clear skies, and +20C/+68F during the conference days. But, as the locals say, it's always possible to have a bit of drizzle during the spring – so it's a good idea to bring a windbreaker or a jacket.
Packing a Second Layer
If you never attended one of the Summits: everything happens outdoors, a fuori. This means you don't risk bringing home an unwanted case of RSV/COVID from spending a few hours locked in a room (hurray!), this also provides seamless mobility options between the coffee stand and your conference seats (we're probably one of the few professional conferences where you can smoke in the designated corner while listening to a panel, or dip a croissant into a flat white while keeping an eye on the slides) –but this also means, that you will need a second layer for the mornings and evenings.
Look at this:
Around lunch time, it will be sunglasses and t-shirts. But at breakfast, and at the dinner, a Summit hoodie or a tweed jacket will go a long way to save you from trying to stay warm by consuming copious amounts of hot beverages.
Audience Choice Awards
At the end of each day of the conference, there's a voting (with anonymous ballots) to determine the Top 3 panels that win the Audience Choice Awards.
This is a popular vote, without curation, it's about the sessions that the attendees found the most useful for them, professionally (total points received/number of those who attended this specific session = grade). The division by the number of those who attended is there to avoid the situation where we award the panels that simply had the most people in the audience (e.g. opening, or just prior to lunch). We cannot hope that every session will be useful for every attendee. These awards are just a way to say "thank!" to the panelists who delivered value to you.
The lead(s) of the Top 3 panels get the wolf statues to take home:
Crucially, I note with incredible pleasure the trend for the sessions to have 2 co-leads, rather than 1. Initiated by Alexandre and Andrea, and Konni and Leonie, this best practice takes root: I know it, because we always need to manufacture enough wolves to cover all possible wins. And this is the first time when we have 3 panels with 2 co-leads, so that we produced 6 wolves (in case all these panels win). This is reason 25 why I'm so happy to work with such collaborative a community.
The other panelists on Top 3 panels get a smaller version of the wolf, made as a pin that can be (humbly) displayed on a bag, or on a jacket, to suggest that you're in the presence of one of the community pillars –>
Finally, the lead(s) of the Most Upvoted Session get the regal perk of sending an invitation to any new industry counsel to attend the next event (this would be Summit On Tour IV in Porto in 2026), which is complimentary to that attendee. Imagine that!
Anyways, all of this is just to say: please vote at the end of each day!
The winning panels will be announced (and prizes issued) at 18:30 on April 3. And you will not believe what we have prepared to make sure we're audible among the chatter of the Closing Reception (hint: it's a bit louder than the usual Summit bells 🙉).
Speaker Chocolates
If you commit to presenting at the Summit, we love you: you deliver value to your peers, you do your best to highlight a particular area of law that you're an expert on. From Speaker Directory to digital spotlights, and Audience Choice Awards, we want to return a bit of the positive energy that you provide to the community.
A small – but sweet – part of this tradition, are the speaker chocolates by Pierre Marcolini: if you're a panelist in Rome, you will find a small box in your attendee bag. Bring it home to kids, so that they also dream of growing up to speak at our conferences? 😜
Getting Into / Out of Rome
I highly recommend to use the super-efficient Leonardo Express, that takes you in under 30 minutes directly into the heart of the city (with excellent ventilation, by the way: each time I traveled, the CO2 was well below 700ppm, like a first-class office or a modern hospital). Book ahead, digitally, to avoid queuing to the ticket machine! You can validate the ticket for an earlier train if you make it ahead of schedule.
The Partners
Finally, I would like to give a big shout-out to the sponsoring firms who support Summit On Tour III, as shown above – thank you!
The word "sponsor" means different things in different industries. Sometimes it's a cigarette brand that's plastered on a rally car, and you basically sell the audience to these merchants of misery; sometimes it's a betting site brand that's on a football jersey (same abuse, just mental); and sometimes it's a pharmaceutic company that pays for the drinks in exchange for the right to do a keynote about their new (hopefully, not too overpriced) drug. Because of this, I generally steer clear of the word "sponsors", just like I try to use "games industry" and not "gaming industry" that is often used to greenwash betting.
With the Summit, sponsorship makes about 30% of the overall budget, and plays an essential role in us being able to run the Summit: without partner firms, we would either be unable to do the event, or will have to increase the prices, which cuts into inclusivity and diminishes the concept. The firms that you see above, are central to our capability of running this conference; they support the event not because their calculations show that it's good value for money per exposure and reach, but because they believe that having such an event is conductive to the professional community, and brings value for everyone.
They trust that the moot court, Legal Challenge, is a Good Thing that we do together; and they trust that operating in a collaborative fashion, with a level playing field, is one of the impactful ways to make our corner of the industry friendlier and more resilient. Dear partners, most of whom support the Summit for close to a decade by now: thank you for enabling our team to carry this dream forward!
// Sergei @ Charlie Oscar
PS
If, by any chance, you play golf, then I have news for you: we have the beginning of our community's own Golf Club: Karol Laskowski plans on playing in Rome, which has a famous course (Marco Simone). If you're interested, please ping Karol!