Creative Informatics - a toolkit for digital events

Creative Informatics is a research and development programme based in Edinburgh, which aims to bring the city’s world-class creative industries and tech sector together. We are a collaboration between University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh Napier University, Creative Edinburgh and CodeBase. We run many events, from meetups and networking, to drop-in sessions and workshops to support applications and funding of various programmes. We don’t do any specific teaching, however many of our sessions are intended to be informative and enable peer collaboration and knowledge exchange. In August 2020, Creative Informatics wrote an informal and practical guide to our experiences pivoting to online events in light of the restrictions of Covid-19 and numerous lockdowns. This toolkit offers a more structured journey on planning and delivering an online event. We offer more technical know-how, top tips and questions you should ask yourself whether you are new to hosting events or are a more seasoned pro. This is our standard of practice and is by no means exhaustive as platforms and audiences needs change but we hope this will give you a solid ground to work up from. This toolkit was written in 2021 and reflects our knowledge and experience of hosting events as online or hybrid.