Redgate’s Level Up Conference 2022

Visitors to my blog over the last 5 years may have followed the progression of Redgate’s internal tech conference, Level Up, from it’s inaugural (organised somewhat on-the-fly) event in 2018 to the virtual event we pivoted to in 2020. This year (2022), we were able to finally realise a vision for the event that we had to put on ice when the pandemic hit – turning Level Up into a full company, co-located celebration of Redgate and our commitment to Learning and Development.

In early June, over 270 Redgaters descended on the Wellcome Genome Campus in Cambridgeshire to attend Level Up Conference 2022 – Redgate Software’s biggest ever co-located internal conference. The event had two aims; to invest in learning & personal development – encouraging over 60 Redgaters to lead talks and workshops for the benefit of their colleagues – and to meet with other Redgaters from across the organization.

Here’s a video that gives you a flavour of that the day was like:

In our hybrid ways of working, company-wide events like this have become increasingly important for us to build a shared sense of identity & belonging, and for us to connect with Redgaters beyond our immediate team. With that in mind, Level Up Conference 2022 included many fun, wellbeing and creative activities, and the fantastically-named ‘Revel Up’ afterparty, which allowed us to kick-back and reflect on the day with some food and drink.

It’s fair to say the team responsible for organizing the event were completely blown away by the level of engagement across the company in the run-up to the conference, the buzz on the day, the support and appreciation that Redgaters gave our speakers, and the palpable sense of reconnection with the wider company. It felt like things had gone pretty well, but to be honest the team and I are a bit biased, so we really wanted to step back and get a more objective view of whether the event had met the aims we set out at the start of the planning process.

Thanks to the 121 Redgaters who took the time to fill in our post-event survey, we now have a clearer sense of whether the Cambridge Level Up Conference 2022 did what it was meant to do and how people felt about the event itself. Spoiler: it did, and people loved it. This image shares some vital statistics from the day and the feedback we received.

What are we most proud of? Probably that 92% of attendees can now say “hello” to someone they did not know before the event if they now bump into them in the office or online – so Redgate is a little bit more connected than it was before ❤