Sessions and roundtables

Rooms where people say the thing they would not say on a stage

Most advertising events are a trade show with a lectern attached. Someone pays for a slot, gives a talk that is a product pitch with the pricing removed, and everyone in the room knows it. The useful conversations happen in the corridor afterwards, between people who have just worked out they are allowed to be honest with each other.

We run the corridor.

The rules, because they are the whole product

These apply to every event under this programme, without exception, and they are the reason the rooms work.

Nobody pitches from the stage. Not us, not a sponsor, not a speaker. If a session turns into a product demonstration, whoever is chairing will stop it. Attendees are told this in advance, which is why they say what they actually think.

Speaking slots are never sold. There is no sponsored keynote, no paid panel seat, no pay-to-play. Who speaks is decided on whether they have something to say.

We say who paid. Every event discloses that it is funded by Blowtrumpet, a company with a commercial position in this industry, and discloses any other funder. On the invitation, not in the small print.

No delegate list leaves the room. We do not publish attendee lists, share them with sponsors, sell them, or use them for marketing. Nobody gets your details because they bought a table.

Closed sessions run under the Chatham House Rule, properly applied: you may use what was said, you may not reveal who said it or which organisation they are from — including afterwards, including in a newsletter, including as “a senior person at a large agency told me.” Breaking it costs you the invitation.

We do not sell you anything afterwards. Attending an event is not a sales enquiry, is not treated as one, and does not put you into a commercial follow-up sequence. If you want to talk to Blowtrumpet commercially, there are addresses for that and they are nowhere near this programme.

The formats

Format	Who is in the room	Scale	How it runs
Panels and workshops	Researchers, agencies, advertisers, creators, students	Open, moderate	Discussion-led, not presentation-led, with people who disagree with each other on the panel
Industry roundtables	Agencies, advertisers and brands, invitation only	Small, closed	Chatham House Rule. One problem, three hours, no slides
Creator sessions	Creators and the people who represent them	Small to moderate	Working sessions on rates, terms, payment practice and leverage
Research seminars	Academics, methodologists, practitioners	Small	A study presented to people qualified to attack it, before publication where possible
Early-career sessions	Students, graduates, people entering the industry	Open	Teaching and mentoring, no recruitment pitch attached
Testing sessions	Community members who volunteer	Small, closed	Structured testing of tools and formats from Blowtrumpet research, clearly identified as such

Panels and workshops

The format everyone claims and almost nobody runs: a chair who will interrupt, panellists chosen because they hold genuinely different positions, and at least half the time given to the room. We brief panellists that disagreement is the point and that defending your employer’s line for ninety minutes is the one way to not be invited back.

Industry roundtables

Closed sessions on the problems people will not discuss on a stage: measurement that does not work, spend nobody can account for, and practice that everyone follows and nobody defends. One problem, a small room, three hours, no slides, and a written summary afterwards that carries what was said and not who said it.

Invitation is by relevance to the problem rather than by seniority or budget. A planner who runs the campaigns is often more use in the room than the person two levels above them.

Creator sessions

The economics of creator advertising, examined with the creator’s interest treated as a first-order concern rather than as a risk to be managed. Rates, terms, payment timelines, contract clauses worth refusing, and what leverage actually exists. Creator managers and agencies are welcome; the session is designed so that a solo creator can disagree with an agency in the room without it costing them work.

Research seminars

A study, presented to people equipped to find the holes in it, usually before publication. This is where a method gets attacked rather than admired. Our own work goes through this too, and the seminar notes travel with the study when it publishes.

Early-career sessions

For students and people entering the industry: how this business actually works, what the jobs are, what the numbers mean, and which of the things they have been taught are out of date. No recruitment pitch is attached. If a Blowtrumpet role comes up it is mentioned at the end, once, and nobody collects CVs at the door.

Testing sessions

From time to time we invite people from the community into structured testing of tools and formats emerging from Blowtrumpet’s research. These are always identified as such. Taking part is not a commercial relationship, creates no obligation, and is covered by its own consent and data terms given before you join.

Who we try to get in the room

A room that is all platform-side vendors produces a conversation about platforms. A room that is all brands produces a list of complaints. The mix is the work:

• Advertisers and brands that depend on programmatic for visibility, including the ones who suspect it is not working for them
• Agencies running programmatic campaigns — the planners and traders who do it daily, not only the people who present about it
• Creators and creator agencies, including creators big enough to have leverage and creators who do not yet
• Researchers and academics working on attention, wellbeing, measurement and privacy
• Students and early-career people, with places held for them rather than offered if there is room
• Policy, standards and legal people who regulate systems they rarely get to see operating
• Technology and platform people, deliberately not in the majority

We hold places for students and for independent creators in every open session, and we do not release them to fill numbers.

Code of conduct

Every event runs under a written code of conduct, given to everyone in advance.

Expected: disagree with the argument, not the person. Let people finish. Assume the person you are talking to knows something you do not.

Not tolerated: harassment of any kind, discriminatory remarks, persistent pitching at people who have asked you to stop, photographing or recording anyone without consent, or using a closed session’s contents outside it.

Enforcement is immediate and is the chair’s call, up to removal from the session and from future ones. There is a named conduct contact at every event who is not the chair, so that a problem with the chair can still be reported.

Reporting: conduct@stateofads.com, or in person to the named contact. Reports are handled confidentially and the person reporting decides how far it goes, except where we have a legal obligation.

Access, and making the room actually reachable

Free to attend. Every event in this programme is free. No ticket, no membership, no tier.

Venues are chosen for step-free access, and the access details are published with the invitation rather than supplied on request. Where a venue fails on access, we change the venue.

Captions and materials. Live captioning on request, made at sign-up, and we aim to default to it for larger sessions. Slides and written material go out in advance to anyone who asks.

Timing. Sessions run in working hours wherever possible. An industry that holds its real conversations at a late bar excludes a predictable set of people, and the conversations are not better for the drinks.

Food accommodates dietary and religious requirements as standard, without anyone having to explain themselves, and there is always a substantial option that is not an afterthought.

A quiet room is available at larger events, for prayer, for a break, or for anybody who needs one.

Travel. Where cost is the barrier for a student, an independent creator or an early-career attendee we can cover travel, quietly, with no public note of who was covered. Ask when you sign up.

Online. Sessions that work remotely are run hybrid or recorded. Roundtables are not, because the candour depends on the room.

How to get in

Open sessions — panels, workshops, early-career sessions — are announced on this site and through the community, and you sign up. If a session is oversubscribed we prioritise the mix described above rather than first come, first served, and we tell you which it was.

Closed sessions — roundtables, research seminars, testing — are by invitation, chosen for relevance to the specific problem. You can ask to be considered: write to programmes@stateofads.com with the problem you work on rather than your job title. That is a normal way to get invited, not a cheeky one.

Nobody pays to attend and nobody pays to be invited.

Propose, speak or host

Propose a session. A problem you think is worth three hours and a room, with a note on who should be in it. We run sessions proposed by people outside Blowtrumpet and we would rather have more of them.

Speak. Tell us what you would say and what you believe that your peers mostly do not. We do not want a case study with the client’s logo on it.

Host. If you have a room in Delhi NCR, or want to bring a session to your city, campus or office, we will travel. A host does not get a speaking slot in exchange, and we will say that to your marketing team ourselves if it helps.

Co-run something. Trade bodies, universities, creator collectives and publications — joint events work well where both sides keep editorial control of their own part.

All of it: programmes@stateofads.com.

What happens afterwards

Open sessions produce published notes, and recordings where everybody on stage has agreed.

Closed sessions produce a written summary carrying what was said and not who said it, circulated to the room first so anybody can flag an attribution risk before it goes wider.

Nobody is named or quoted without written consent, which remains withdrawable. If you realise afterwards that you said something you should not have, tell us and it comes out.

Where a session feeds research, that is said in the room at the time, and the output follows the [Method](/method) and the [Editorial Guidelines](/editorial-guidelines).

No photography of attendees is published without consent, and we do not use event photographs in marketing material.

What we collect when you sign up

Your name, email, organisation and role, anything you tell us about access requirements, and whatever you say about the problem you work on. We use it to run the event and to decide the mix in the room.

Held by Blowtrumpet Technologies as Data Fiduciary under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, under the [Privacy Policy](/privacy). Access requirements are seen only by the people arranging the venue and are not retained after the event.

Never: sold, shared with sponsors or speakers, used for Blowtrumpet product marketing, or published as a delegate list. privacy@blowtrumpet.com to see, correct or delete what we hold.

Being straight about where this is

The programme is young and in closed testing alongside the rest of the company. Sessions are small, they are mostly in Delhi NCR so far, and the calendar is not full. We would rather run six rooms that are worth being in than forty that are not.

If the format you want does not exist yet, propose it. Several of the ones above started as somebody’s suggestion.

Events and programmes	programmes@stateofads.com
Code of conduct reports	conduct@stateofads.com
Research seminars and proposals	research@stateofads.com
Media attendance	media@stateofads.com

[Read the research](/research) · [Method](/method) · [Care & Impact](/care-and-impact)

*State of Ads is the industry engagement programme of Blowtrumpet Technologies, South Delhi. State of Ads is a trade mark of Blowtrumpet Technologies. Every event under this programme is funded by Blowtrumpet and says so.*