Sephoria 2021

[Anastasiya13]

I am curious, what is/was everyones thoughts on the virtual sephoria event?

Edit:

My opinion of the event was that it was a bit of a let down for me. I expected more, especially considering how they were saying that it would be interactive, and have game(meaning more than one) to win swag. Some of the videos were interesting to watch, but honestly nothing too special. The loft was my favorite out of everything, since there you can actually ask questions and communicate. Also there were a lot of issues, even with the photo booth, where it would say "demo" over the photos, however it was fixed later, but that was towards when the event was almost over. 

[Ispend2much6]

@curlychiquita   I can see that, the desktop working better.  My kids built their own desktop computers for the purpose of being able to play video games more easily and have a better experience with online classes. 

[WinglessOne]

@Anastasiya13 @SephoraBIC  Since I've never been to Sephoria in person, I wonder how masterclasses and discussion panels at the in-person event are usually scheduled, compared to this virtual event. I think I saw a survey link somewhere during virtual Sephoria, and I'll fill it out when I find it again. My responses will look something like this: 

Challenges: 

1. Not enough time between sessions. I sometimes felt like I was running between high school classes in the 1980s. 😂😓 It'd have been nice to have a breather between some sessions so I could explore the house. I was in the backyard for just 2 minutes, and luckily I noticed the game while I was there. 
2. Too much session overlap. I wound up spending most of my time in the home theater, breaking away only to see the Accelerate roundtable, part of the DDG session, and the wellness session, and to very quickly check out the backyard. 
3. Some rather short sessions. The Fenty masterclass was just 10 minutes long. I didn't see the "beauty for all" Fenty + Amika session (because of session overlap) so I dunno, maybe more Fenty makeup technique was shown in that session. I'll find out when I go back to watch content on-demand. But yeah, some of these sessions were surprisingly short. I skipped the influencer/content tips session which was 25 minutes long; I'd have much rather seen the Accelerate session extended to 25 minutes, or even 30 minutes. (No offense to Sephora Squad members. I'm just more interested to hear about the Accelerate program from participating brands' perspectives.) 
4. Not enough interactive sessions. I'm sure this was due to participants' availability, so I understand why more sessions were pre-recorded. Still, I'd have loved to be able to ask Danessa Myricks and Patrick Ta questions during their masterclasses. 
5. Only 1 game? Awww... Even if more prizes couldn't be won via more games, it would've been fun to at least have something like a pre-recorded beauty trivia game video or, I dunno, something where attendees could interact via a quick simple board game. 

Successes: 

1. Content's available on-demand after the event. Yay, I can watch some of what I missed! 
2. Overall, the Sephora hosts did a good job. So far, I can only speak for the sessions I watched. But y'all did good! 
3. A few interactive sessions. I caught the interactive DDG session but didn't stay for the whole thing. (Too. Much. Session. Overlap.) But the ability to ask questions is always a nice touch for these sessions. 
4. The quickfire this-or-that video clips were fun! I was able to catch a couple of those with Danessa Myricks and Shani Darden. If there are more of those available on-demand, I'll watch 'em all. 
5. Mental health & wellness session was greatly appreciated. One of the 2 illness I advocate hardest for is anxiety disorder (yes, I know "anxiety disorder" actually covers a wide range of separate illnesses; I have one of them), so I'm always glad to see mental health discussed in a non-judgmental way. I especially appreciated the tips for folks wondering how they can help those of us with mental health issues without fearing they'll say the wrong thing. Honestly, some of us (especially members of my anxiety tribe) have the same fear when we try to help others whose illness is different from ours. Thanks for featuring this entire topic—and not overlapping it with any other sessions. 🙂 

Eh, I might have more feedback after going back to watch what I missed and re-watch a couple videos. 

[heartsmyface]

@WinglessOne   Masterclasses in person were booked and limited based on physical space available.   Gold tickets could prebook two classes per session.  
There was some overlap between events but you were limited to booking two masterclasses to ensure other attendees had the opportunity to have their own experience with the limited space There were a couple showings of some classes so if you attended multiple days (which is highly recommended) there was less disappointment.  
An online conference is different and should be able to accommodate as many people in a room as are interested in joining.  It needn’t be put on multi track if it’s prerecorded content.     
There were times some of us found ourselves running around to meet our beauty service appointments or to hop into an inevitably long masterclass line early to get better seats.  It was fun and the time passed quickly because the visual stimulation and social aspect of it.  

yes, interacting with others playing tic tac toe or doing brand trivia and winning even just 10 Sephora points per win would have been fun!  Just something beyond wandering halls with randomly placed non interactive figures.  It felt like a ghost town.  

[WinglessOne]

Thanks @heartsmyface for the info on the in-person Sephoria scheduling. I wondered about that primarily because the virtual session scheduling seemed so odd, I wasn't sure if it was done that way to mirror the typical Sephoria in-person session scheduling, or if it was completely different from the in-person event scheduling. I've attended many in-person conferences (mostly writer/editor/content strategy and digital/web design cons, but also a few non/less-educational genres) and a couple of virtual cons. Based on those experiences, I didn't expect virtual Sephoria to have so much session overlap. Totally agree with you that the prerecorded sessions could've been better scheduled. 

I barely got to explore the house anyway, so I didn't notice the ghost town effect as much as others—because I had no time between sessions to explore. But going back to the house post-event, I definitely got that feeling. If this is ever done virtually again, hopefully it's planned far enough in advance to work in much more interactivity, especially among attendees. I wanted to virtually hang out and chat with other BIC members, dang it! 

[Anastasiya13]

@WinglessOne  I been to an actually sephoria event, so from what I remember there was some running around/overlap back than, but that was because they had appointments for stuff too like getting brows done and other stuff that I cant remember at the moment. I agree with you challenges, plus wanted to add that the "photo booths" had issues too. It is nice that they can let people rewatch the things on sephoria, but than again they did not have too many interactive sessions. Honestly I hope that if they do this event virtually again, they would take more time to plan, or actually deliver on the information that they gave out.

[WinglessOne]

@Anastasiya13  The funny thing is, I wouldn't have been so bummed about lack of interactivity (let alone not having time between sessions to be interactive) had Sephora not marketed this event as interactive. Some virtual conferences are marketed mostly as educational or talent/skill-building, which sets a different expectation. I'm so used to online work-related classes (took LOTS of them throughout my 20-year career 😂), I wouldn't have expected any interaction with other Sephoria attendees had Sephora marketed the event differently—and I would've been fine with it. I think expectations were set wrong for this event. 

And yes, definitely hope any future virtual event like this is planned early enough to build in more interactivity. There are various ways to do that: a few simple 2-4 player games, live chat rooms for all sessions (even the prerecorded ones), a video chatroom (could've been held in one room of the house—perhaps the backyard), even a phone conference bridge. Would've been cool to see attendees' names/avatars roaming the house and have a way to interact with them—though I honestly didn't miss that much because I had no time between sessions anyway. 

I don't wanna ding Sephora too hard because, if I recall correctly, they didn't have a ton of time to plan this virtual Sephoria. They could've pushed the launch date out farther, but I realize they had to work with brand-participants' availability. Still, I'm very surprised the idea of virtual Sephoria wasn't already in the works when it was first brought up on BIC. 

[niki172]

@WinglessOne I missed the mental health one thank you for mentioning that! I'm going to have to go back and watch that one. It was a challenge jumping from class to class indeed.

[SportyGirly125]

@niki172 @That one was the only one that didn’t overlap and was at the end. 

[niki172]

@SportyGirly125 I had to leave right before it ended unfortunately to attend my nephew's b-day party. Being on the East coast sometimes has its disadvantages so I was happy to see that we can go back in and see any class we may have missed.

Edit: it didn't work on your phone right? Because I had my phone with me driving (I was not the one driving) to my brother's house but I thought it said Sephoria worked best on a desktop/tablet. 

[SportyGirly125]

@niki172 @It doesn’t work on your phone. It will start on it but you can’t go to any of the rooms. 

[CookieGirl1]

@SportyGirly125 @niki172 I actually "attended" the event on my phone and it worked fine.

[SportyGirly125]

@CookieGirl1 I tried it on my phone earlier and it didn't work.  I just tried it now and it worked.  Weird.  

[curlychiquita]

@Anastasiya13, I enjoyed it. I wish it had been more interactive, maybe with some live panels. I know a bunch of us did our makeup thinking people would be talking back and forth. The most fun I had was with the photo booths. Thanks for helping me figure those out! 🙂 What did you think? 

 (after)

 

 (before)

[eshoe]

Yes to the special makeup, @curlychiquita. My husband glanced at me and asked if I did my makeup special for the event. Then he narrowed in and went so far as to ask if I did a ‘Smokey eye.’ I had no idea he even knew the term.

[curlychiquita]

That's awesome, @eshoe! I don't think my husband knows the term smokey eye but it's neat that your husband noticed. I'm sure you looked gorgeous!

[eshoe]

It surprised me and gave me a good laugh, @curlychiquita!

[SportyGirly125]

@eshoe Hahaha.  I told my husband I was getting up early to do my makeup but then ended up doing it at 9:30am.  I had it planned out in my head already.  I thought we would have screen time with each other 😞

[eshoe]

Awww I bet you looked gorgeous @SportyGirly125. Yes, I anticipated some screen time as well 😕

[SportyGirly125]

@eshoe Aww thank you. I posted my look on the what are you wearing today thread using the new chantecaille green shadow and new green liner from MAC. 

[eshoe]

Heading over to take a look @SportyGirly125 

[Anastasiya13]

@curlychiquita  No problem hon, I know we were all a bit confused at first since they did not give enough details. I expected more out of the event, and to me personally it was a bit of a let down. I thought it would be more interactive, more giveaways, more communication, and just more in general.