Not just attendees, but participants

At the News Product Alliance Summit, everyone participates in some way. Our hands-on sessions rely on participants who are ready to share their experiences and perspectives. Facilitators create space for in-depth conversations, design exercises, demos, and workshops, and participants bring questions and take ideas back to their newsrooms. In addition to sessions, folks help make the event an inclusive, welcoming place by leading group activities, volunteering, and even just saying hi to new friends and collaborators over breaks and activities.

The NPA Summit is a space to form deep connections with peers and have the opportunity to learn news product management skills, share case studies and insights, and collaborate to define best practices for news product management. We look forward to seeing what ideas folks have and how we can make them possible during our time together.

Our call for participation form will open in Fall 2024, and we'd love to hear how you'd like to participate.

Making the most of the Summit

Here are a ways to help you make the most of this event:

• Be part of hands-on workshops that reimagine product, teamwork, leadership, community, and journalism itself —join in the sessions to actively participate and learn.
• Connect with people who share your hopes and dreams for journalism—not just making professional acquaintances, but creating meaningful relationships that last.
• Bring who you are into a conference that thinks about the program, the schedule—even breaks & activities—as ways to celebrate everything you have to share.

We also hope that you’ll help us create a welcoming digital environment by:

• Being generous with +1s and emojis. During talks and sessions, speakers and facilitators won’t be able to see your expressions as clearly, or hear your claps or snaps — so give them positive feedback digitally in the chat, and be generous!
• Help us maintain our focus on you, the community, and not your employer. At in-person events, we don't show a person’s place of work on their name badge. We’re carrying that over to this online event by hiding your emails in Slack (which often reveal your employer), and by encouraging you to talk about your interests and passions first when making connections.
• Support one another. In-person, we like to follow the "pac man rule" of always leaving space open for new people to join the conversation. Digitally, we can support each other by following the same spirit. Especially with a video chat setup, it can be hard to get a word in. If you see someone else trying to add to the conversation, help make sure they get a chance to speak. If you see someone looking for help in Slack, lend an ear.

Inviting participants and allocating tickets

We keep our events intentionally small, and this online event will be no different. We're planning for about 500 participants. Even though a physical venue isn't constraining the size of the crowd this year, the collaborative, interactive nature of the Summit just doesn't scale in the same way a talks-only conference can. The relatively small size of this event means we need to be intentional about equitably distributing tickets and ensuring that there are a mix of perspectives and skills at the NPA Summit. The responses to our call for participation form helped us understand who would like to take part and what participants want to get out of the event. We work with those responses to create a schedule and audience that reflects the dynamic interests and needs of this community.

Our call for participation, which opens in Fall 2024, is your opportunity to let us know you'd like to attend, propose session ideas and tell us if you need scholarship support. If invited to the Summit, you can purchase a ticket starting at $150 plus fees.

Details about ticket prices

In order to make our event as accessible as possible, we have a range of ticket prices and free scholarship ticket options.These prices help us to balance the actual costs of our event with keeping prices as manageable for attendees as possible.

Here are the tiers for tickets to the News Product Alliance Summit (plus ticketing fees):

• $150: This is the base price for people who are paying their own way, from small news organizations with fewer than 50 people, or nonprofits with budgets $750,000 or less.
• $275: This tier is for people from medium-sized news organizations of 51-250 employees, nonprofits with budgets $750,000-$2 million, and other similar-sized organizations.
• $395: This ticket tier very nearly reflects the actual cost for each attendee of the NPA Summit and is for people from large news organizations with more than 250 employees, nonprofits with budgets over $2 million, and other organizations that provide full professional-development budgets for employees.

In addition, we have a limited number of free scholarship tickets set aside for people who otherwise would not be able to attend for financial reasons, with priority for Black and Indigenous participants, people of color and international journalists around the world. You can request scholarship support in our call for participation.

Here's the most important thing to know about these ticket prices: We want you to choose the one that makes sure you can be at the Summit. We don't review who pays what, and we won't follow up with any questions. If you work for an organization where budgets have already been set or there's no support available to you, choose a lower price and join us. By the same token, if you budgeted for travel costs you no longer have to spend and are able to purchase a ticket at a higher tier, please do. In addition, if you would like to contribute to the Summit scholarship fund, you'll have the option to add a donation as part of the ticket purchasing process.

We based these tiers on community feedback. Ticket funds are a huge part of what makes it possible to organize an event with scholarship tickets, speaker stipends, automated transcription, and the support of a skilled event team in preparing sessions and constructing a schedule that lets attendees focus on learning and talking together.

If you have any questions at all about ticket pricing, please reach out.

Welcome, first-timers

We think events are best when there's a mix of new folks to the community and folks who have been talking about this stuff for years. Attendees at the Summit will be coming to "product" from many points in their career, with some attendees looking to transition into the product field full-time and other people interested in developing their product thinking skills. We believe that regardless of experience or job title, all of us have something to contribute to discussions and ultimately create change in the industry.

If you'd like to help us welcome folks to the event and make it a friendly setting, consider joining us as a volunteer! Volunteers are a huge part of what makes this event possible, and receive a free ticket to attend. If you'd like information about volunteering, please email us.

Accessibility and access

Accessibility will take shape in this online format in a few different ways:

• Financial access: We have a limited number of free scholarship tickets available to help people who wouldn't otherwise be able to attend.
• Language access: The Summit will be conducted in English, and we're also exploring a mix of human transcription and automated closed captioning for sessions. As there is attendee interest, we'd be thrilled to support small group meetups in languages other than English. Let us know about any meetup ideas in the call for participation form.
• Timing access: We're planning a mix of sessions you'll be able to participate in live and asynchronously, taking place largely between 8 a.m. - 9 p.m. ET. We hope to make it easier for people from a variety of time zones to participate as well as for all participants to manage attending sessions alongside other responsibilities.

If you have other access needs, please let us know. We're doing our best to accommodate as many accessibility needs as we can and will keep attendees updated about adjustments to the program, details about platforms, and how to access all aspects of the event.