Skift Take
C2 is consistently at the top of lists of the world’s most creative events, and is often a cross between a conference and a carnival. We spoke to C2’s creative director about this year’s accomplishments and how the event has evolved since the pandemic.
Brian Quinn
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Every May, C2 takes place in Montreal, attracting thousands of creative and business leaders looking for inspiration and new ideas. Like many global events, the pandemic forced C2 to postpone for several years, but it also gave the opportunity to try out new formats for the event.
Skift Meetings spoke with C2’s Creative Director, Nicholas Fonseca, to get his thoughts on what worked well at this year’s event and find out more about the process of creating an interactive experience. Fonseca, also known as Mister Joan, is a filmmaker and artist who focuses on using different layers of food, sensory design, technology and play to create memorable experiences.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Now that the dust has settled and the 2024 edition of C2 in Montreal is over, what did you think of this year’s event and how has it evolved?
This is truly a homecoming moment for me as Creative Director, having been contracted to create the first C2 experience in 2012 and having worked on the event project on and off ever since.
When C2 started, it Another Era Conference-oriented events. The whole cultural context of these events was changing. It’s weird to think about it, this was still the “golden age” of social media, when TED Talks were taking off on Facebook, and conferences like SXSW were starting to explode. It was a very different time, and a lot of events were moving to a festival-like model.
Then the pandemic hit, canceling the 2020 C2 and having to produce the 2022 edition in less than six months. So 2023 still felt like a Covid edition, with a digital format, a partner hotel venue, and a trade-off with the Village experience we are known for. But this year C2 took place in a new venue along the St. Lawrence River, full of natural light and creative space. There is a newer audience at C2 post-pandemic. Many attendees don’t have the pre-pandemic standards. There were many who returned, but there is definitely some turnover, with new, younger attendees experiencing C2 for the first time.
So C2 hasn’t moved to big hotel events as some thought?
No, it was really a product of the pandemic. In that sense, the new space we had this year gave us the space to be creative again, to re-evoke the spirit of the village experience through installations, special experiences and spaces.
For example, the main stage is on the second floor of a covered outdoor parking lot, half indoors, half outdoors with a view of the river. We are very happy with our results. After a lot of experimentation in the transitional period of the past few years, we felt like we were able to establish a new cycle of C2. And people really told us, “C2 is back.”
C2 is positioned as the business event where creativity and commerce intersect. It promises to deliver a wide range of experiences, discussions and endless surprises and delights. Are there any big changes in terms of the experience in 2024?
This was a really high bar to clear, and we had to break down our goals into what we could achieve during this three-year change process. One of the things we wanted to do was to go from a black box to a white box. C2 has always been a dark, nightclub-like event, with a more festival-like approach that is far removed from a traditional conference. Compared to a conference, nighttime events use a lot more projections and lighting.
But then everyone started doing that, so one of the things we wanted to relaunch was to move to something that felt more like daytime, without valuing the social aspect, and that connected to a sense of productivity and growth. It was weird, but it made everyone seem calmer. We made good use of lighting, filtering and enhancing the natural sunlight, creating different moods for morning, midday, and evening. I remember sitting down with the lighting designer and saying, “We don’t want red, blue, purple lighting.” That’s become the base level for every event we attend. Not having a screen or projector also helped with people’s temperament, which was a big discovery during the event.
Do you still have evening events at C2? I saw a video of Snoop Dogg DJing at C2’s closing party a few years ago. Is that still a big focus?
Now, there are fewer big parties and more cocktail parties, dinners, and receptions. This change reflects a broader trend in conferences where large parties are less common than they once were. This year, we’ve also reimagined food and hospitality at conferences, with fewer dinners and instead a focus on pop-up restaurants. We’ve worked with an incredible restaurant group to create a dream pop-up concept that allows for natural power-lunch-like networking within a conference environment.
What about the labs and small group interactions that characterize C2? Did this white box mentality carry over into your more singular experiences?
That’s right. I think 2023 was the year in which we experimented the most with lab formats and collaborations with many creative artists. We worked with nonprofits, visual artists, designers, creative entrepreneurs, technologists. We went in many different directions. All of that was intentional as we were prototyping and breaking out of our shells. So in 2024, we worked on some formats, types of interactions, and vibes that we felt paid off in 2023. These were also evident when we surveyed our participants and partners in 2023 to see what direction was right for us.
Yes, this is a lab that I did with a group of young coaches. They run a company called Nüense and they often work with very creative chefs in their workshops. I was obsessed with lasagna and thought that its many layers are essentially an allegory for group dynamics. So the lasagna in this lab was a metaphor to talk about people’s understanding of neurodiversity in the workplace. It’s something that challenges people’s understanding of how it shows up in relationships. Basically, you don’t have to bake all the trays of lasagna in the same mold. Participants cut pasta in different shapes and colors and layer it into a giant pasta sheet. The resulting colorful pasta sheets were beautiful, almost like a quilt, and we used them to make lasagna. And then at the end of the day we baked all the lasagna trays and served them at a cocktail event for the participants.
Yes, that’s intentional. We may partner with companies for certain aspects of the content. It’s not that we’re against it. We just don’t want to get into a situation where we have to do that for every part of the conference. There’s a balance between maintaining the integrity of the experience and working with partners.
It’s a big push and pull element. Take coaching as an example. This is a new service that we’ve been conceptualizing for three years. It actually started as a sponsored activity, where we did five-minute coaching sessions in a car. The response was good, people were interested and wanted more sessions. So we asked ourselves, what is coaching in the context of a conference and what can we do with it? And so we decided to really expand this format and try different formats and coaching theories. If you look at the coaches in California, you see a very holistic approach and then you see a more formal performance coaching style. So we continue to experiment with new formats based on different theories.
How does the C2 team manage the production of all these experiences?
It’s definitely a big team effort. We have scenography and environmental design, content and programming, and the whole experience. So it’s a pretty big team, but we’re not all just creative. We have a horizontal collaboration model internally to maximize creativity and efficiency. The creative team includes marketing and shared resources, and we work closely together to maximize collaboration and bring it all together.
What is your approach to networking? Are you planning a reception as you would for most events, and coming up with an approach that goes beyond the traditional structure of networking?
We all want networking to be a personal achievement and for the event to be worthwhile. It’s about finding people you want to work with in the future, whether it’s a project or a partnership. There’s a sense of growth there. We research and develop it by creating unique opportunities for planned and serendipitous interactions. We also design spaces for both intimate and professional conversations. Again, the idea of a power lunch in a pop-up restaurant is an example to connect with people you would only meet at a conference. But I don’t think anyone is attracted to something called a networking event.
It’s all about AI now. Was there anything at C2 that leveraged AI or was it implemented for attendees?
I think the app incorporates a lot more of AI, which is becoming more and more familiar in our lives. The whole event is still in the experimentation phase with AI. In terms of content, one of the things we did this year was to carve out three days of content and programming. Day one was more immersive and experiential, day two was focused on sustainability and innovation, and day three was focused on AI and commerce. We did a game show about AI, “The AI Game Show.” Relevant or outdated?was kind of a mix of The Price is Right and Jeopardy. It was one of the labs, a collaboration with creative technologists. It was AI, it had humor, it focused on the more existential aspects of AI. It was a lot of fun.
How can you lead creatively without feeling the pressure to constantly innovate?
Now we feel less pressure, and some people want to bring back familiar events every year. Also, changing events so often creates marketing and communication pressure. You don’t need to change everything every year to stay innovative. I think it makes sense to have a layer of events that can change every year. Another layer that changes every 3-4 years, and then some that change every 10 years. In that sense, you don’t need to change everything with the same frequency.
circleWhat events inspire you?
Overall, I like a great environment. A mix of interesting people is what I like. Being in a clear perspective or point of view, like I’ve landed somewhere. I miss the total magazine experience. When I used to pay for magazines every month, I could step into this curated world with a clear perspective. It creates a space where you feel like you’ve stepped into a complete world of people, references, knowledge, things. At its best, any live experience or event is in contact with something that can be communicated. Without it, we don’t feel anything concrete.
Do you often have to explain your experience or approach to events to others?
I try to explain as little as possible. Having done participatory and interactive events for years, I know that some people are enthusiastic and want to touch and try everything, and are very happy to have their part in the story written. Some people are very happy to know the story and just want to read it. Others don’t care about themselves and just want to feel good in the environment. For me, all ways of reading an event are valid, and as long as people feel good, my job is done.
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