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C2 is consistently ranked among the world’s most creative events, often akin to conferences and carnivals. We checked in with C2’s creative director to find out how this year worked and how the campaign has evolved since the pandemic.
Brian Quinn
Every May, C2 attacks the city of Montreal. It attracts thousands of creative business leaders who are looking for inspiration and new ideas. Like many global events, the pandemic caused C2 to take a multi-year detour, but also led to attempts at new formats for the event.
Skift Meetings caught up with C2’s Creative Director Nicolas Fonseca to get his thoughts on this year’s event and delve deeper into his process for creating interactive experiences. Fonseca, also known as “Mr. Wong,” is a filmmaker and artist whose efforts often focus on using food layers, sensory design, technology, and gaming to create unforgettable experiences.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Now that the dust has settled on the 2024 Montreal C2 event, what are your thoughts on this year’s event?
It was a full-circle moment for me as a creative director. As early as 2012, I signed on to help create the first C2 experience, and since then I have been involved in event planning on and off.
When C2 started, it was a different era of conferences. The entire cultural context of these events was about to change. These were still the “good old days” of social media, which is strange to think about, when TED Talks were popular on Facebook and conferences like South by Southwest were just starting to explode. It’s a completely different time, with many events shifting to a festival-like format.
Then the pandemic happened, C2 for 2020 was canceled and we had to create the 2022 version in less than six months. So 2023 still feels like a Covid version, with digital formats and partner hotel venues, which is a trade-off compared to the rural experience we’re known for. This year, though, C2 is in a new location on the St. Lawrence River, filled with natural light and creative space. Post-pandemic, C2 has a new audience. Many attendees had no reference points from before the pandemic. We have a lot of people coming back, but there’s definitely a turnover, with new, younger attendees experiencing C2 for the first time.
So, C2 didn’t transform into a big restaurant event like some thought?
No, this is truly a product of the pandemic. In that sense, the new space this year really gives us room to be creative again. We are able to rekindle the spirit of the rural experience through installations and unique experiences and spaces.
For example, the main stage is located on the second floor of an outdoor covered parking lot, half inside and half outside, with views of the river. We are very pleased with the product we delivered. After many experiments at Turning Point over the past few years, it feels like we can build a new C2 loop. People literally said to us, “C2 is back.”
C2 positions itself as a business event at the intersection of creativity and commerce. We promise to present a diverse range of experiences, discussions, endless surprises and delights. Are there any major changes to the experience in 2024?
This is a very high bar and we have to break down what we can achieve during this three-year transformation process. One of the things we want to do is go from a black box to a white box. C2 was always a dark nightclub event that strayed away from the traditional conference nature and took on a more festival approach. There is a lot of projection and lighting compared to night events and meetings.
But then everyone started doing it, so one of the things we wanted to update was to do something that felt more like daytime and tied to a sense of productivity and growth without assessing the social aspect of it. It was strange, but everyone seemed calmer because of it. We do use lighting to filter and enhance natural sunlight to create different moods for morning, noon and evening. I remember working with the lighting designer and saying, “I don’t need any red, blue, or purple lights,” and that became the base level for every event we went to. The absence of screens and projections also contributes to people’s character, which was a major revelation during the event.
Are there any evening activities at C2? Over the past few years I have seen videos of Snoop Dogg DJ hosting the C2 closing party. Is this still a big focus?
Nowadays, large parties are less common, shifting more to cocktail parties, dinners, and receptions. The change reflects a broader trend in conferences, where large gatherings are less common than before. This year we are also reducing the number of dinners and instead focusing on pop-up restaurants, rethinking food and hospitality in a conference setting. We partnered with a fantastic restaurant group to create a fantastic pop-up concept that allows for natural networking, such as a sumptuous lunch in a conference setting.
C2 is also known for its labs and group interactions? Does this white-box thinking also carry over to those more unique experiences?
It did. 2023 will probably be the year we experiment the most with lab formats and collaborations with many creative artists. We work with nonprofits, visual artists, designers, creative entrepreneurs, and technology experts. It goes in many directions. Everything is designed as we are prototyping and coming out of our shell. So in 2024, we committed to some formats, types of interactions and atmosphere that we think will pay off in 2023. reflected.
This leads you to a program called Neurodiversity Lasagnacorrect?
Yes, this is a lab where we work with a group of young coaches. They have a company called Nüense that often hosts workshops with super creative chefs. I’ve always been fascinated by lasagna, its multiple layers essentially an allegory for group dynamics. So the lasagna in this lab is a metaphor for talking about people’s understanding of neurodiversity in the workplace. It challenges their understanding of how it manifests itself in relationships. Essentially, not every pan of lasagna needs to be baked in the same mold. Attendees will cut different shapes and colors of pasta and then laminate them into giant pasta sheets. The resulting colorful pasta is so beautiful, almost quilt-like, that we will use it to make lasagna. We then bake all the lasagna trays at the end of the day and serve them to attendees at the cocktail hour.
For many events, generating this type of experience requires sponsors. You might take “Neurodiverse Lasagna Laboratory by Barilla Pasta” as an example. Is that the case with C2, where you look to brands to help underwrite and support these experiences?
We do, but it’s intentional. Sometimes we work with companies on certain aspects of our content. It’s not that we are against it. It’s that we don’t put ourselves in a position where we need to do this for every part of the meeting. There needs to be a balance between maintaining the integrity of the experience and working with partners.
You’ve given your audience permission to have these wacky experiences. How do you develop new formats and decide which ones work?
It’s a push and a pull. I’ll give you an example with Coaching, which is a new service that we’ve been developing in Pictures for three years. It actually started as a sponsored event where we did a five-minute coaching session in the car. The response was great: people loved it and wanted more. We then asked ourselves, what does coaching mean in a session? What can we do with it? This prompted us to really expand the format and try different formats and coaching theories. We can expect California coaches to have this super holistic approach and then also a more formal performance coaching style. So we are continuing to experiment with new formats based on these different theories.
How does the C2 team manage the production of all these experiences?
Of course, this is a huge team effort. There’s set design and environment design, and then there’s content and programming, and all the experiences. So it’s a pretty big team, but not everyone is creative. We use a horizontal collaboration model internally to maximize creativity and efficiency. Our creative team includes shared resources with marketing, allowing us to work closely together, maximize collaboration and bring everything together.
What is your social style? Do you plan the reception like most events and come up with ways to go beyond the traditional network structure?
We all want networking as a personal outcome and want the event to be worth our time. It’s important to find people you want to work with in the future, whether it’s a project or a partnership. There is a sense of growth there. We develop it by creating these unique opportunities for planned and serendipitous interactions. We also design spaces for intimate and professional conversations. Likewise, our pop-up restaurant power lunch concept is an example of connecting with people you often only see at conferences. But I don’t think anyone is attracted to so-called social events.
Now it’s all about artificial intelligence. C2 Is there any content powered by AI or implemented for attendees?
I think there’s more embedded artificial intelligence in the app, something we’re increasingly used to in our lives. Overall, we are still experimenting with artificial intelligence. In terms of content, one of the things we’ve done this year is dedicate three days to content and programming. The first day is more immersive and experiential, the second day is dedicated to sustainability and innovation, and the third day is artificial intelligence and business. We did a game show around artificial intelligence called “Relevant or Obsolete,” which was like a cross between “The Price is Right” and “Jeopardy.” That was one of the labs, a collaboration with a creative technologist. This is artificial intelligence, which is humorous and focuses on the more existential aspects of artificial intelligence. It’s interesting.
How do you stay creatively ahead without feeling the pressure to constantly innovate?
I feel less pressure now, some people want something they know every year. It can also cause marketing and communications stress if you’re constantly changing campaigns. Not everything needs to change every year to stay innovative. I think it makes sense to have a level of activity that can change every year. Another layer that changes every three to four years, and then something that changes every ten years. In this sense, not everything has to change at the same frequency.
wattWhat events inspire you?
Overall, I like a nice environment. Interesting combinations of people are always my thing. To be able to be in a clear point of view or perspective, as if you had landed somewhere. I miss the overall magazine experience. When we used to spend money on magazines every month, you can step into this carefully curated world with a clear point of view. Create spaces that feel like stepping into an entire universe filled with people, references, knowledge, and things. In the best cases, through any live experience or event, you’ll be exposed to something relatable. Without it, they wouldn’t make us feel anything concrete.
Do you often need to explain your experiences or methods of attending events to others?
I try to explain as little as possible. After years of participating in sexual activities and interactions, I know that some people are more enthusiastic and want to touch everything and try everything. These are people who feel very comfortable that they are writing part of the story. Others are really excited to know the story and just want to read it. Some people just want to mind their own business but just want to feel good about their environment. To me, all ways of interpreting events are valid and if people feel good about it, my job is done.
