A conference is the most thoroughly solved daytime you will ever have. Someone has decided where you are at every hour, fed you twice, and put you in a room with several hundred people who do what you do.
Then at five o'clock it stops, everyone who lives in London goes home, and you are standing outside a venue with a coat over your arm.
This is about the parts nobody schedules: the evening you arrive, the nights in the middle, and the day at the end when the conference has finished and your flight has not.
01The arrival evening is the one to fix in advance
Most people fly in the day before, get to the hotel around six, and lose the evening entirely. It is the most predictable dead time of the whole trip and the easiest to prevent, because you know about it weeks ahead.
It is also the evening you are least tired and most curious, which is exactly the wrong one to spend on a laptop. Put something in it before you travel. A film, a table, a walk, a gig, anything with a time attached. The specific value of a booked thing is that it converts an evening from a decision into an appointment, and a decision at seven in the evening in an unfamiliar city usually resolves as room service.
02The conference evenings are a window that closes
There is a genuine opportunity in the middle nights and it is worth naming plainly, because a lot of people miss it and then regret it on the flight home.
Everybody in that room is in the same position as you for exactly the length of the conference. The ones who live in London will go home; the ones who travelled in are all standing about at half past five with nothing to do and the same slight awkwardness about suggesting something. On the first evening people are still working out who is who. By the last afternoon everyone has scattered.
So the practical advice is: whatever you are going to suggest, suggest it on day one, not day two. Ask the person you were talking to at the coffee break what they are doing for dinner. The worst outcome is that they already have something on. The second night of a three day conference is the good night; the last one is mostly people who have already left.
03The departure day is the one people waste
Conferences end at lunchtime and flights leave in the evening, which produces a strange five hour gap in which most people sit in a hotel lobby with a suitcase and a laptop.
Two things worth knowing about London specifically. Almost every hotel will hold your bag for free after checkout, and so will the mainline stations for a fee, so the suitcase is not the constraint it feels like. And several of the big central museums and galleries are free to enter, open all day and within a short walk of the main stations, which makes them the obvious use of an afternoon you did not plan.
The other option, if the conference has gone well, is to keep the day rather than fill it. Ask someone you met whether they want lunch before their train. Conferences generate a lot of "we should stay in touch" and very little staying in touch, and the last few hours are the only time that costs nothing to convert.
04Where to stay, if you get to choose
Conference hotels are chosen for the venue, which is reasonable for the days and unhelpful for the evenings. Two London specifics worth checking before you book:
Anything in the City or at Canary Wharf is excellent at nine in the morning and very quiet after about eight at night, because the population there is a working one and it leaves.
Excel and the venues out east are a genuine distance from anywhere with an evening. If your conference is out there, staying centrally and travelling in is usually the better trade, because the journey happens in the morning when you can face it.
05The awkward truth about conference socialising
The official evening events are usually fine and rarely enough. They finish early, they are loud, and they are structured so that you talk to eleven people for four minutes each, which is a good way to collect contacts and a poor way to have an evening.
The nights that people actually remember are the small ones: four or five people who left the drinks and went to find dinner. Those do not happen unless somebody says so out loud, and the reason they often do not happen is that everyone is waiting for someone else to be the one who suggests it. It is worth being that person on the first night. Nobody has ever minded being asked.
06What we do, in one paragraph
KF.Social books you a seat at a table of six in a London restaurant, on a set evening, with other people who are also in London for work. It is 15 pounds for the seat, shown before you pay, and then your food and drinks at the restaurant. The restaurant lands about six hours before, and who you are sitting with about an hour before, which is when the group chat opens. Booking is open to anyone over 18 who pays. If your plans change, and on this kind of trip they do, cancelling 72 hours or more ahead puts the 15 pounds back on your card, and inside 72 hours it does not come back.
We only run in London, which is a real limitation and worth knowing before you look. If you are here, the tables coming up are here.
Related Questions
What should I do the night before a conference starts?
Decide it before you travel. The arrival evening is the most predictable dead time of the whole trip and the one where you are least tired, so it is worth spending on something with a time attached rather than on a hotel room. A booked thing turns an evening from a decision into an appointment.
When is the best night to suggest dinner with people from a conference?
The first one, or the second at the latest. Everyone who travelled in is in the same position for exactly the length of the conference, and by the final afternoon people have already scattered. The second night of a three day conference is the good night.
What can I do on the last day between the close and my flight?
Leave the bag rather than sit with it: most hotels hold luggage free after checkout and the mainline stations do it for a fee. Several of the big central London museums and galleries are free and open all day, and most are a short walk from a main station.
Should I stay at the conference hotel?
Only if it is somewhere with an evening. Venues in the City, at Canary Wharf or out east are well served in the daytime and quiet at night, so staying centrally and travelling in often works better, because the journey then falls in the morning rather than at seven in the evening.
KF.Social
