Oh look our location for BIG SNAP 24 is…
FOLKESTONE
It has taken me around 2.5months to finally announce our location for Big SNAP 24. We were absolutely blown away after SNAP this year with how quickly we sold out the early bird tickets for 2024. This year was absolutely magical and I have definitely felt a pressure for next year to match that. And of course when we launched the early bird tickets we didn’t have a location or a venue, so I felt immensely grateful for the trust from our community.
Venue hunting for big events is always challenging. We want the right space, in the right location and we also want to work with people who have similar ethics and values as us. It’s also recognising that you won’t please everyone, wherever you choose will always be too far for someone. So it can be quite stressful. We found a couple of places, one would have meant charging a lot more for tickets and the other almost went ahead but it turned out they had double booked us. Sigh.
Then wedding season kicked off and my focus had to shift. I started to feel a little anxious around not having somewhere. But as ever sometimes exactly what you need can be right under your nose :)
I moved to Folkestone in 2022, within a month of never having heard of the place I was living there. I fell in love. This small seaside town had everything I needed. Less than an hour to London, the sea on my doorstep and an abundance of creative small businesses. I didn’t really get to fully lean into the brilliance of this town until this year because of how busy everything was in 2022 but this year I also discovered the incredible creative community here.
I had spent quite a bit of time in the Quarterhouse over the summer, attending events in both their auditorium and the clearing upstairs. It’s a beautiful space and one day it hit me that it could be the home for SNAP. It made perfect sense, I love Folkestone and the community of creatives and small businesses that make it so great, how amazing it would be to bring SNAP here.
Everything came together quickly, Rosie agreed it was perfect and within a couple of weeks we had confirmed the Quarterhouse for SNAP 24. I just needed to announce it. And thats where I started to get in my head.
Not because I wasn’t excited about SNAP being in Folkestone but because I felt this pressure to make some sort of high production reel to announce. This is my constant battle, that SNAP doesn’t have enough flair. That our content doesn’t look cool enough or consistent enough. And then Rosie reminded me yesterday that we have substance and that’s way better than flair.
Several people told us at the end of SNAP this year that we had changed their lives and somehow we achieved that with a wonky projector. And that’s how we roll, we don’t need fancy production to make an impact, we do everything from the heart, we aim for authenticity, inclusivity and joy. Although we are delighted that next year we have some great tech and a guy to make it all work smoothly.
So FOLKESTONE! Why should you come here for SNAP next year?
It’s less than an hour on the train from London and the town is small, everything is walkable.
There is an abundance of small creative businesses, two film camera shops, lots of independent restaurants and coffee shops.
The sea!!! We will definitely be organising some sea swimming and hopefully some yoga on the beach.
Your ticket purchase is not only supporting our work and our speakers/team but you will also be supporting a creative and independent community.
There are loads of cute AirBnb’s and they are reasonably priced. There is a purple palace but you would need to be driving so we don’t recommend if you are planning on getting the train.
Folkestone is also beautiful, its beaches, harbour and creative quarter will be a brilliant backdrop for the various shoots we want to organise.
With 6 months to go, we are starting to feel incredibly excited for what next April is going to be for the photography community. Our lineup of speakers is amazing and we can’t wait for all the incredible inspiration, knowledge and tools our speakers will be sharing with you. From SEO to Pinterest we have plenty to help you grow your business but we also strive to bring you inspiration from incredible humans doing incredible work to make the world a better place.
We will be starting on Monday 22nd April with welcome drinks at the Clearing and then over Tuesday 23rd and Wednesday 24th April we will be hosting our talks, a fashion shoot, a wedding styled shoot, a nature walk, headshot swaps, a quiz, beers by the sea, yoga on the beach, business masterminding, sea swimming and something of a party.
Your ticket price of £599 includes all of the above plus teas, coffees, lunch and some afternoon treats.
We have a payment plan in place so you can secure your ticket for £199 and pay the final balance in March 24. All the details and tickets on the button below. We can’t wait to see you there!
