On Wednesday April 25th, our little publication learned how to survive and thrive in the magazine business in Canada at MagNet2018. On that sunny spring day our team soaked up some fresh wisdom at Canada’s largest magazine media super conference. We paid the full of cost of admission to get in the door and access the wisdom being curated inside the Marriott Courtyard hotel in downtown Toronto. We went there on mission to listen and learn and give readers a rare glimpse of what happens inside Canada’s largest magazine convention.
MagNet is actually North America’s largest annual gathering of magazine media stakeholders, and this year’s show had more than twenty-four speakers giving hour long talks throughout the two-day period. The schedule also featured a mini-award ceremony and multiple networking opportunities.
The opening meet and greet happened in MagNet Square, a large room off the main hallway on the ground floor of the hotel. There was fresh fruit and baked goods alongside hot coffee waiting for us when we arrived.
MagNet conference is hosted by Magazines Canada
Magazines Canada is the national trade association representing Canadian-owned, Canadian-content consumer, cultural, specialty, professional and business media magazines – MagNet is their most important, and best attended annual conference.
Magazines Canada did a great job hosting a world class show, but honestly we’d expect nothing less from this venerated organization. They’re experts at untangling bureaucratic red tape, offering their services and stats to both advertising and circulation models. The organization also helps foster career skills for people working in Canada’s magazine publishing industry. In a rather spectacular fashion, MagNet does all of these things in one all encompassing event.
Our team split up to attend different speaker’s talks; in truth we got separated and when we met up again, we discussed our learnings together. In this way we got the most possible benefit from the first day of this two-day long event.
Above, Natalie Milne from Maple Media discusses how she wrangles Instagram influencers using some specialized software. We glimpsed some of this machinery in the slide below while listening to her monologue.
Each day at lunch, one lucky person won a prize courtesy of Magazines Canada and MagNet event sponsors. Conference attendees were encouraged to drop their business cards in a bowl at the Magazine’s Canada own booth in MagNet Square. There were at least three other business card collection bowls here and every mini-contest initiative had a prize component. Two of the more notable giveaways included a Mophie wireless charging base courtesy of Reader’s Digest, as well as an Amazon Echo Show courtesy of MagHub.
MagNet is the place to be to build your skills and grow your business.
A wide spectrum of unique and often rather eccentric individuals comprise the audience at MagNet. The conference attracts a crowd of creative people as diverse as the content Canadians consume. The event brings magazine writers, editors and publishers too of course, but also gadget guys, software engineers, and media distribution wizards. There are veterans and rookies sitting side by side in every seminar.
Below is Jennifer Neal and Katie Weber from creative agency Truth and Dare. These marketers target magazine entrepreneurs and extend a diverse array of services to help publishers raise their circulation and sales.
From the same elite force, Richard Carmichael, marketing and communications specialist with Truth and Dare, prepares his speech for the show.
The magazine business is a tough racket, and the administrators of this year’s conference wisely included a relaxation station with trained masseuses who were busy throughout the day (and probably the next day too). A nearby coat rack was frequently dripping with suit jackets as business executives of both sexes let these dedicated health professionals work muscle-tension from their shoulders and backs.
Representatives from Canada Council for the Arts, the Department of Canadian Heritage and the Ontario Media Development Corporation were all here at MagNet2018 and we learned plenty at their booths and while attending their workshops.
Twitter @MagsCanada and #MagNet18.
