For the seventh time in as many times, I find myself staring at Leon Revill though yet another video screen.

“Justin, we’re on step 14.”

I don’t recall what step 14 is. This is a sad treatise to my fading memory since I’m the one who wrote step 14.

“Right, click call audience to session.”

We’d been going over the script for weeks at this point. From an idea conceived by our good friend and co-host of the Web Platform Podcast Erik Isaksen, Web Components Remote Conf was born. Leon and I had taken over the reigns since Erik found himself suddenly busy. This was of little concern to Leon and myself; we cared only for our friend who simply could not be everywhere at once and we gladly picked up the torch.

What we didn’t expect was a remote conference was going to run our lives for a while.

****

The thing about remote conferences is that from the viewing side, it all looks very simple. Like watching television it just all works and unless it breaks you pay little attention the problems.

What we failed to realize is that we were playing with fire. We had 16 speakers in different locations around the world, experts in the field, people we hold in high regard and whose time we took very serisouly. We did not wish to waste their effort.

“Is this going to work?” we found ourselves constantly asking. At first we met once a week, discussed our plan. By the last month, were on video calls every day, testing our chosen platform and planning for every contiengcy.

When everything is remote, the smallest issues pop up. From timezones, to ocean wires, to storms, to flipped admistration accounts, to handling questions, the list grew every day. We took each problem one by one, and made sure we had an answer for each.

As the conference drew near, the calm hit.

“I think we’ve got this!” exclaimed Leon one day after walking through our checklists.

I too had started to feel okay about things.

****

When I woke early the day of the conference a storm was raging outside. California had again been hit by a huge storm and as I poured coffee our house lights flickered. Maxwell House Coffee, our pointer pup (and yes, that’s his real name), looked up at me with eyes of concern. I couldn’t help but feel my chest tighten.

Two days I said to myself. Surely this storm can’t get worse.

****

As I stood in front of the camera and the first speaker took over the slides, the uniterupted power supplies not only kicked for the workstation I found myself at, but also the building.

In this moment, controlling a live stream and watching viewer counts starting to swell, the wave of panic set in.

“Leon, if I drop, you’re taking the stream” I said in the backchannel. Leon, situated in the UK was isolated from not only my storm by my general fear.

“Yep, watching on the sideline now.”

What happened next was what one could expect given a remote conference.

Nothing.

With the wind and rain pounding the glass the storm played no role except for banter chat in between talks. Fear had been just that; false expectations appearing real.

****

In hindsight, our preparation and at times very detailed planning had paid off. Things that really helped included:

• We had speaker training weeks before which means there was no one surpised by the setup.
• Our choice in platform crowdcast.io worked without a hitch for speakers or attendees.
• When things looked shaky on a couple talks in terms of internet connectivity, everything worked out fine. If it hadn’t, we had fill talks prepped and we had question and answer sessions ready.
• We divided tasks and covered lots of ground; Leon would write emails while I wrote the step-by-steps.
• We practiced until we simply could practice no more.
• When in doubt, we communicated. We were open about potential issues and we worked to get ahead of problems with delivering the talks to attendees.

****

With things wrapped up our next steps are exciting. People are still buying tickets to the conference to watch the recorded talks and those proceeds are being donated to Girls Who Code, a national non-profit organization dedicated to closing the gender gap in technology.

We plan on releasing all the videos free and open to the public on YouTube in April and we’re already considering running another conference.

Finally, I want to personally thank Leon. Leon, you’re amazing and this conference would have been horrible without your dedication and effort. Thank you to our speakers, thank you to our attendees, thanks to our sponsors, and thank you all for supporting the open web. Web Components for the win!

Until the next remote conference.