Blog: Himanshu Arora recounts his Goafest 2022 experience

We had the three-day Goafest happening from 6-8 May 2022, which I attended from day two onwards. I landed late on Thursday night, via a 'red-eye' flight. 

 

The physical event was happening after about two years and there was a different kind of excitement to meet friends from the industry. The vibes said it all. Also, it was my first event after a while (I don’t attend many industry events as I get bored very easily).

 

On Friday, my first meeting kicked off at 10:30 am with a global leader from LinkedIn. Me being me, I reached the place 30 mins early and felt as if I was part of the event organising team. The preps were still going on and I was getting those looks of ‘why did you come so early’ and ‘advertising people don’t come this early’. But it was a good start to the day with a productive meeting. 

 

After grabbing some breakfast, I was confused between attending the masterclass by the Sharechat team or the knowledge seminars on OTT by Vikrant Massey, Ali Fazal etc. I ended up at the masterclass and felt like I was back to school. After attending zillion webinars and virtual events, being back to a physical event just made me feel relieved and liberating. 

 

That hug, greetings and smile of meeting so many of your industry friends, bumping with them over lunch/coffee and discussing what’s happening advertising space, made me feel at PEACE. 

 

I think human interaction is some oxygen for our soul and sometimes we take a lot of obvious things for granted. 

 

Post lunch, I ended up attending Kapil Dev's talk. Considering the post 83 movie hype, it was a fun talk. After this, I sneaked out for an interesting conversation with friends speculating who is going to win what and having challenges for each award, which led to excessive beer drinking later.

 

The awards show then started, and more about that you can read on Campaign India.

 

Moving to the second day (third day of the festival). I got a good night’s sleep and reached on time i.e. noon. I attended the masterclass by a good friend Amaresh on web 3.0. I was glad to see something like this at Goafest. 

 

One of the best sessions for me was by Aiyyo Shraddha. I had a real jolly time. She made a set, specific to the advertising fraternity, it was relatable and heartening to see. Lunch followed by a few more sessions master class on Meta, films on OTT, YouTube shorts and sessions by Madhuri Dixit on influencer/content creator space. The day ended with the Abby Awards.

 

Wrapping up, I managed to do all, that I wanted and intended to do so. Some knowledge sharing, meeting friends and also winning the metal for one of our (Social Panga) campaigns. 

 

I took another late night flight so that I could be back in Bengaluru and spend time with spent with the wifey so that  we maintain global harmony.

 

The author is co-founder, Social Panga