Know Before You Go: Adobe Summit EMEA

“When a man is tired of Lon­don, he’s tired of life,” said the not­ed man of let­ters, Samuel John­son. While much has changed since he wrote those often-quot­ed words, Lon­don remains an excit­ing metrop­o­lis for Adobe Sum­mit EMEA vis­i­tors to explore.

To help you make the most of your stay in the UK’s cap­i­tal, the team at Adobe have put togeth­er a few sug­ges­tions on how best to nav­i­gate your days both inside and out­side of Sum­mit attendance—whether you need a quick break from the hub­bub or want to extend your time pre- and post-events.

Let’s start with the inside Sum­mit basics and a few steps to fol­low to make your expe­ri­ence even more enjoyable.

Step One: Down­load the Mobile App

Our Adobe Sum­mit EMEA mobile app gives you the lat­est infor­ma­tion to ensure you can get the most out of your Sum­mit expe­ri­ence. Use it to search and sched­ule your break­out ses­sions, inter­act with speak­ers, rate ses­sions, view con­fer­ence maps and access many oth­er use­ful resources.

https://summit.adobe.com/emea/connect/mobile-app/

Step Two: Plan How to Get There

With reg­is­tra­tion open from 7:00am and the open­ing keynote ses­sion start­ing at 8:45am, you won’t want to be late. The ear­ly bird def­i­nite­ly gets the worm, both by avoid­ing queues at the reg­is­tra­tion desk and coat check, and by snag­ging great seats at the keynotes. ExCeL has an infor­ma­tive trav­el guide to help you plan your journey:

http://excel.london/visitor

Step Three: Wifi

In addi­tion to excit­ing con­tent on stage, there’s a huge amount of con­tent online. Don’t miss out: get on the free Wifi net­work as soon as you arrive. Please note, we will be pro­vid­ing sup­port for devices that are com­pat­i­ble with 5GHz net­works. Atten­dees con­nect­ing to the net­work using devices that are only com­pat­i­ble with 2.4GHz net­works may expe­ri­ence poor per­for­mance or con­nec­tiv­i­ty issues.

The fol­low­ing net­works will be broad­cast across the venue:

• SSID Band
• _Summit2018 5GHz
• _Sum­mit2018-Lega­cy 4GHz

Once you con­nect to one of the above net­works your device will ask you to sign in to the Wifi net­work. We will only ask you to sign in once. Click con­tin­ue to accept the terms and conditions.

You are now connected!

Note: Should your device not ask you to sign in, please open a brows­er and nav­i­gate to www.adobe.com.

Please turn off your mobile hotspots as they degrade the net­work expe­ri­ence for con­fer­ence attendees.

Step Four: Sum­mit Blogs

You prob­a­bly know about the blogs already since you’re read­ing this post on one, but in case you land­ed here via some oth­er route, we encour­age you to delve deep­er into this year’s key themes by vis­it­ing Adobe’s Dig­i­tal Europe blog. Whether you need more infor­ma­tion on the ses­sions or want to read up about what it means to be an expe­ri­ence busi­ness, we have a blog post for you:

https://blogs.adobe.com/digitaleurope/tag/adobe-summit/

Step Five: Read CMO.com

CMO.com will be at Sum­mit again this year, so please come see the team at the stand in the com­mu­ni­ty pavil­ion. If you’re not famil­iar with CMO.com, whet your appetite with this selec­tion of arti­cles fea­tur­ing our Sum­mit speakers:

7 Ways You Could be Killing Inno­va­tion: Inter­view with Lego’s For­mer Head of Glob­al Brand: http://www.cmo.com/features/articles/2018/4/23/7‑ways-you-might-be-killing-innovation.html

Pilot­ed by Cus­tomers, Vir­gin Atlantic Soars with ‘Heart­felt Ser­vice’ http://www.cmo.com/interviews/articles/2017/11/17/virgin-atlantics-cronin-aims-for-the-best-experience-at-38000-feet.html#gs.EJy_rK4

AI Nudges Expe­ri­ences Fur­ther: http://www.cmo.com/opinion/articles/2018/4/9/ai-nudges-experiences-forward.html#gs.OobgMWA

Step Six: Share the Livestream

Friends and col­leagues who didn’t get a tick­et to Sum­mit EMEA 2018 can watch the live cov­er­age of the keynote ses­sion streamed on the Sum­mit web­site on 3 May, begin­ning at 8:45AM BST.

summit.adobe.com/emea/

Step Sev­en: Be Social at Summit

Our social team have a great pro­gramme planned, so why not be part of the buzz? Fol­low @AdobeSummit and @AdobeExpCloud and join the con­ver­sa­tion on the hash­tag: #Adobe­Sum­mit.

Now, some sug­ges­tions for fill­ing in your spare time—if you have any.

Lon­don is big. It’s the third largest city in Europe by pop­u­la­tion, accord­ing to the cen­sus tak­ers (and we do like data here at Adobe, so we’re going to trust their results). There­fore, you need to what’s in reach and what isn’t. For exam­ple, you shouldn’t plan a quick trip over to Har­rods to pick up gifts dur­ing your lunch hour because you’d need about half a day to get there and back from the Excel Centre.

We grouped our sug­ges­tions based on the amount of free time you have, using the Excel Cen­tre as a base from which to explore. We’d love to hear about your adven­tures. Why not share your expe­ri­ences @AdobeSummit so every­one can enjoy your secret finds?

With­in 20 min­utes…

• We owe a lot to the Sum­mer Olympics of 2012. With­out them, the area around the Excel Cen­tre would be far emp­ti­er than it is. Instead, since the venue host­ed both box­ing and gym­nas­tics events, there has been a lot of invest­ment in these parts with far more to do today than was avail­able even five years ago.
• If you need a quick break, there are three restau­rants worth check­ing out for a sit down and sup (or sip). The clos­est to the action is Yi-Ban in the Lon­don Regat­ta Cen­tre (1010 Dock­side Road). Great for dim-sum and tra­di­tion­al Chi­nese dish­es, it offers fan­tas­tic views of the Thames.
• For a pint and clas­sic pub grub, then Fox@Excel is the place to go. While it is locat­ed just out­side the Excel entrance, it’s on the oth­er side of the build­ing from Adobe Sum­mit so it is a bit of a walk (or sin­gle stop DLR trip) to get to.
• Final­ly, La Bar­rique, locat­ed imme­di­ate­ly next to the Fox, is a good locale for piz­zas and Mediter­ranean fare. It also has an exten­sive wine list if you fan­cy a tipple.
• Expe­ri­ence-wise, well, you can’t do much bet­ter than rid­ing the Emi­rates Air­line cable car across the Thames to the O2. It’s a rough­ly 20-minute walk to the entrance, plus you will need to fac­tor in the time to go across the riv­er and back—but, oh the views! If you’re luck and it’s a sun­ny day, you’ll have fan­tas­tic pho­to oppor­tu­ni­ties for shots of Canary Wharf, the O2, and planes tak­ing off and land­ing at Lon­don City Airport.

With­in an hour…

• More time equals more options. With an hour to spare, you have more than enough time to check out the O2. Built to cel­e­brate the Mil­len­ni­um, it’s is now the pre­mier live music venue in town. Sad­ly, there are no big names per­form­ing dur­ing Sum­mit but it’s still a great place to head to if you want to catch a movie or enjoy a more leisure­ly meal. Gau­cho (Argen­tinean steaks), Byron (killer burg­ers), Bus­a­ba (Thai food) and Cabana (Brazil­ian dish­es) are all locat­ed here for you to enjoy.
• More of a dare­dev­il? Why not sign up to climb the dome with Up at the O2? This adven­ture expe­ri­ence is made up of a guid­ed climb across the are­na roof, with scenic views of local land­marks. Just don’t be afraid of heights.
• Land-lub­bers might pre­fer to go bowl­ing at the Hol­ly­wood Bowl—but only if you have spare time and aren’t pre­pared to strike out.

A three-hour day… by boat

• Make your way to the O2 using the pre­vi­ous­ly men­tioned Emi­rates Air­line cable car and then catch the MBNA Thames Clip­per Ser­vice to the beau­ti­ful area of Green­wich. Notable for its Geor­gian archi­tec­ture and mar­itime his­to­ry, Green­wich also offers a love­ly cov­ered mar­ket filled with artists and crafts­men to help you pick up the per­fect memen­to. Cul­ture vul­tures will enjoy the Roy­al Naval Col­lege, Nation­al Mar­itime Muse­um and tours of the restored 19th cen­tu­ry clip­per ship, the Cut­ty Sark.
• If it’s a bit of R&R you are after, con­sid­er a stroll through Green­wich Park, one of the Roy­al Parks of Lon­don. A for­mer hunt­ing park, this green­space is one of the largest in south-east Lon­don. The views from the Roy­al Obser­va­to­ry are some of the best in the city, with vis­tas of Green­wich, Canary Wharf, the Mil­len­ni­um Dome and the Thames. Be sure to check out the rose gar­den, the “Queen’s Oak” tree (asso­ci­at­ed with Queen Eliz­a­beth I) and admire the four hun­dred year old chest­nut trees dot­ting the landscape.

A three-hour day… by DLR

• This option is the best one for shop­pers as it takes you straight to one of the largest shop­ping centre’s in Lon­don, West­field in Strat­ford. Anoth­er neigh­bour­hood that owes a lot to the Olympics, Strat­ford was trans­formed by the 2012 Games, fol­low­ing the influx of heaps of invest­ment which result­ed in the con­struc­tion of the Lon­don Aquat­ics Cen­tre, designed by Zaha Hadid, and the Olympic Sta­di­um (now known as the Lon­don Stadium).
• Ride the DLR straight to Strat­ford and shop til’ you drop at John Lewis, Arket, H&M, and over 350 oth­er shops and ser­vices. Fol­low up your shop­ping expe­ri­ence with a stroll through the Olympic grounds, end­ing with a ride on the slide at the Arcelor­Mit­tal Orbit designed by Sir Anish Kapoor. Remem­ber, you don’t need to be a kid to have fun—especially in London.

Fur­ther afield…

• Where does one begin? The Tow­er of Lon­don, Lon­don Eye, Hous­es of Par­lia­ment, Tate Mod­ern and Big Ben (sad­ly under ren­o­va­tion and cov­ered in tarps) are all locat­ed along the Thames river­banks and with­in easy reach using the clip­per boat sys­tem from the O2. While it may sound cheesy, I always rec­om­mend the dou­ble deck­er bus tour for any first-timer sim­ply because it takes you past all the major sites and is a con­ve­nient way to get your bear­ings. You’ll be sur­round­ed by tourists, but aren’t you one your­self, in a way?

What­ev­er you do and wher­ev­er you go, Lon­don is an excit­ing, wel­com­ing and diverse des­ti­na­tion. The British cap­i­tal encour­ages you to make any vis­it there an experience—and we do, too.