“Dublin will always be in our hearts. We’re leaving but hope to come back in the future.” Co-founder Paddy Cosgrave’s farewell comments to the audience at the conclusion of this week’s Web Summit – the final one for Ireland for at least three years as the giant show moves to Lisbon – struck exactly the right note. They demonstrated a maturity and thoughtfulness that wasn’t always on show in the weeks leading up to the event. Instead, Cosgrave led several withering attacks on officials and organisations, some with merit, some bordering on the ludicrous.
Fortunately, the festering issues mostly were left to one side as the event itself – a cornucopia of speakers, topics, and visuals, including a revolving series of business, sports, television and publishing stars – dominated interest.
Now, the stands and huge staging areas are down, the pub crawls have ended, and the hotel rooms have been vacated. What’s left in the aftermath? Certainly, a need for Ireland and Dublin officials on one side, and Web Summit organisers on the other, to absorb a few harsh lessons.
For officials: the lackadaisical approach to managing real issues for events, like traffic and transport concerns, must end. Create a single body to address conference needs. For the Web Summit: behave more like the innovative, problem-solving businesses and the level-headed entrepreneurs you admire. Public rudeness rarely impresses.
Dublin will miss having the event which fills hotels and restaurants and brings a fantastic array of speakers to the city. But Web Summit was not among the largest Irish events of recent years. Nor is it a major catalyst for inward investment. Ironically, though, for an event that always claimed to champion Irish industry and Ireland as a tech centre, the very public dispute with officialdom will have done some harm, as can be seen in the reporting by international media.
But that’s in the past now. The move to Lisbon will provide new challenges and opportunities for the Web Summit. Hopefully it will be a time for fresh thinking. And maybe then, it will come home to Dublin and Dublin will be ready for it.