Clockwise from top left: Selfie of me; Christmas tree in The Landmark London Hotel; my wristband for the event; palm trees inside The Landmark London Hotel; the front of The Landmark London Hotel.

On Saturday 1st December 2018, I attended my first ever Blogosphere Festival at the Landmark London Hotel. I wasn’t looking forward to the festival as much as I was initially because I thought Brogan Tate, a blogger and YouTuber who I’ve met twice before, was going to attend the event as she bought her ticket well in advance, but five days before the event she told me in her reply to my comment on her weekly vlog that she was not 100% sure about attending in the end (turns out she didn’t attend due to finding the run-up to Christmas overwhelming and wanting some time to do the ironing, read a good book, etc). In spite of this I still went and I did not enjoy the event quite as much as I was expecting, not because Brogan wasn’t there, but because I needed to queue as I arrived a tad early, there were only two panels that appealed to me due to my familiarity of the influencers who hosted them, some of the panels ran late, I found myself hanging around quite a bit as there was not much else to do, I couldn’t finish conversations with some influencers as they had to speak to other people too, there weren’t that many brands on display and I didn’t get as many things in my goody bag as I thought I would, so these factors made me feel silly for getting worked up about Brogan no longer attending in the first place.

 

Clockwise from top left: One of the flower walls; me in front of the flower wall (photo credit: Sophie AKA Fifi/shotsbyfifi on Instagram); Big Potato Games stand; World Duty Free Christmas Tree; Ling, Beth, Albertine, Em and Becky in front of the flower wall; Bronte, Saby, Lydia, Sammi and a lady whose name I can’t remember (I will update this post once I do remember) in front of the flower wall; me with Lydia in front of the flower wall (a lady called Carrie took this photo); me with Jordan in front of the flower wall (photo credit: Sophie AKA Fifi/shotsbyfifi on Instagram); the stage for the panels; World Duty Free stand; Big Potato Games stand.

On a more positive note, the venue was easy to get to and stylish; I liked the Big Potato Games stand (their stand made me think Brogan would be attending as she is their brand ambassador, but when a lady at the stand told me she thought that Brogan was coming to maybe demonstrate the games, I told her that she was no longer attending) and the World Duty Free stand; the Beauty of Travel Panel hosted by Em Sheldon, Beth Sandland, Ling Kt/ling.kt and Becky from World Duty Free; the How to Grow an Authentic Audience on Instagram panel with Lydia Elise Millen, Sammi Jefcoate, Bronte Huskinson (From Bee with Love, formerly Bookish Bronte) and Saby from All Things Hair.; and meeting bloggers and YouTubers such as Beth and Jordan Emily Brown (Hello Miss Jordan) again and Em (and her mum), Alice Spake (her surprise arrival more than made up for Brogan no longer attending) and Lydia for the first time. I even made Em and Jordan (as well as Jordan’s fiancé Tom, who didn’t attend the event) some handmade personalised shrink plastic keyrings to congratulate Em on reaching 60k subscribers on YouTube and Jordan on her engagement to Tom that they very much appreciated. There were also some comfortable chairs in the corridor outside the Ballroom where I could sit and update my social media if there were no panels I wanted to watch. Small dishes such as vegetable Thai green curry, miniature desserts such as mixed berry Eton mess and a range of hot and cold drinks were also on offer. While I had a mixed berry Eton mess and a blueberry mojito mocktail, I decided to go all out and have a cheeky Nando’s in between the morning and afternoon sessions.

 

Clockwise from top left: Shrink plastic keyrings for Em, Jordan and Tom; a cheeky Nando’s; blueberry mojito; miniature mixed berry Eton mess.

 

In my goody bag I received the following:

 

1. Big Potato Games Santa Banter game – festive version of Obama Llama and Obama Llama 2. I am considering playing this with my family when I see them over Christmas.

2. All Things Hair. notebook and stickers – Absolutely useful to have. I love some of the captions that appear on the stickers too.

3. Yolt Guide to Money Mindfulness – This could prove very helpful, especially if I had financial concerns earlier this year, but at the time of the publication of this post, things are looking up with my finances.

4. audioBoom flyer

5. #JetSetBeauty clear zip up pouch

6. Dior make up palette – As I don’t really wear make up, I am thinking of giving this as a gift or selling it on eBay.

I also took home a booklet that told me what brands were at the festival and what influencers would be hosting each panel.

All in all as much as I was grateful for Albertine and the rest of the Blogosphere Magazine team organising the event (I even thanked Albertine on my way out), I did not find the event as worth the money as I did #BlogConLDN 2018 where all the panels appealed to me, there were more brands to see and my goody bag contents were far more substantial despite the convention only being four hours long. One way the Blogosphere Festival could be improved is the offering of workshops running through the day in case people don’t want to see any panels, although I guess this depends on the venue in terms of if it has any extra spaces for these workshops or not. Despite this suggestion, I found the positives of the festival outweighed the negatives on the whole. My initial negative outlook of the event that turned into a more positive perspective has even inspired me to take part in Paige Joanna’s #ChristmasConfidence photo and story brief on Instagram and I received a lot of positive feedback on my post including that from Paige herself.

 

Links to influencers and brands mentioned

Brogan Tate

Blog: http://www.brogantatexo.co.uk/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/brogantatexo

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brogantatexo

Twitter: https://twitter.com/brogantatexo

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brogantatexo/

Em Sheldon

Blog: https://www.emtalks.co.uk

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/Emshelx

Instagram: https://instagram.com/emshelx

Twitter: https://twitter.com/emshelx

Beth Sandland

Blog: http://bethsandland.co.uk/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/bethanysandland

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bethsandland

Ling Kt/ling.kt

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwLEOTQix0OuYvFmg9A6SHA

Twitter: https://twitter.com/lingktang

Instagram: https://instagram.com/ling.kt

Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/LingKhacTang/

Lydia Elise Millen

Blog: https://lydiaelisemillen.com/#L1/1

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/lydiamillen

Twitter: https://twitter.com/LydiaEmillen

Instagram: https://instagram.com/lydiaemillen

Sammi Jefcoate

Blog: http://sammijefcoate.blogspot.com/?m=1

Instagram: https://instagram.com/sammijefcoate

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoB_v5V6NMpT0dHW3EYyHNg

Bronte Huskinson (From Bee with Love, formerly Bookish Bronte)

Blog: https://www.frombeewithlove.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/frombeewithlove

Instagram: https://instagram.com/frombeewithlove

Saby (All Things Hair)

Instagram: https://instagram.com/sabyaurora

LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/saby-aurora-salvatierra-4318a140

Jordan Emily Brown (Hello Miss Jordan)

Blog: http://www.hellomissjordan.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hellomissjordan

Twitter: https://twitter.com/hellomissjordan

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/JordanWithAChance

Alice Spake

Blog: https://www.aliceanne.co.uk/?m=1

Twitter: https://twitter.com/alicespake

Instagram: https://instagram.com/alicespake

Albertine Sarah

Blog: https://www.albertinesarah.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/AlbertineSarah/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AlbertineSarah

Paige Joanna

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/paigejoannacalvert

Twitter: https://twitter.com/paigejoannaa

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/paigejoannaa

Blog: https://www.paigejoanna.co.uk

Blogosphere Magazine: https://www.blogosphere.biz

Big Potato Games (U.K. website): https://bigpotato.com/gb

World Duty Free (U.K. website): http://uk.worlddutyfree.com

All Things Hair. (U.K. website): https://www.allthingshair.com/en-uk/

Yolt: https://www.yolt.com

audioBoom: https://audioboom.com

Dior (U.K. website): https://www.dior.com/en_gb

Disclaimer: This is not a sponsored blog post. All opinions expressed are my own.