We were delighted to host The Indie Forum 2021 in late May. The Indie Forum consisted three part day sessions of exciting and stimulating content curated especially for independent agency leaders and their teams – and over 300 of them registered for the event!
The Indie Forum: exciting – informal – accessible – inclusive – and affordable.

exciting
We hand-picked inspirational speakers – leaders in their fields, but also people you’ve probably not heard talking at conferences before. Our speakers were from around the world – China, India, UK and USA.
Every presentation was LIVE – no safety-first, pre-recorded content here! There was no pay-to-play from the sponsors and, if you didn’t agree with what the speakers said – you could challenge them. Attendees heard new thinking and acquired new knowledge that we hope, changed their view of our industry – forever.

informal
Lets be honest, no-one likes sitting in front of a screen for a whole day. The Indie Forum was spread over three days – each with two to three hours of active content, and breaks to chat with fellow participants if you wish to.
Each day had a theme.
- Tuesday was “Fun Tech and Scary Tech”
- Wednesday was “Re-Set and Re-Think”
- Thursday was “Looking Forward, not Back”

accessible
The Indie was not about fancy virtual reality environments, with complicated sign-up procedures and multiple simultaneous content streams. All you needed was Zoom.
Plus, the Indie Forum is a jargon free zone. Everyone in marketing communications will learn to understand stuff they had not even heard of, half an hour earlier.

Inclusive
Like all our big events, the Indie Forum had a gender-balanced and ethnically diverse speaker program.
But “inclusion” goes beyond our speaker program. The Indie Forum, like the Indie Summit, is relevant for people from ALL independent marketing and communications agencies and consultancies. Creative, media, PR and all forms of digital and social media communications.

Affordable
We love the feeling of meeting people who have travelled halfway around the world for a full-scale Indie Summit. But we also know that not everyone can afford this.
With the Indie Forum being online, there were no travel costs, and no risk of catching Covid!
BONUS OPTION
A 3 day series of workshops –
The Seven E’s of Engagement – with Patrick Collister
Patrick Collister is one of the World’s Leading Creative Directors – and thinkers about our business.
His award-winning career has included long-term creative leadership roles at agencies as diverse as Ogilvy, EHS Brann and the Google Zoo.
Today, he works as a creative NED, edits the Directory, Curates the Caples awards and provides creative coaching and training to agencies around the world.
Patrick kindly agreed to provide course of three online workshops, two hours each day, for a small-ish group of up to 20 people, to coincide with the Indie Forum.
The theme was “The 7E’s of Engagement” – a compelling distillation of Patrick’s unique learnings and experiences on how to get customers interested in what you have to say.
SPONSORS
We would like to thank our wonderful sponsors for their support of this event. Please do check out their websites.
About Actus
At Actus, we believe that incredible things happen when you focus on growth.
We answer the difficult questions about how to grow your business by focusing on four pillars: Purpose, People, Planet and Profit. Combining your ambition and vision with our deep expertise, we develop practical strategies to get your business to where it needs to be.
Ultimately, our solutions are designed around you, with the tried-and-tested Business Growth Programme as the foundation of how we work with businesses – creating clear direction, outcomes and accountability for everyone involved.
Each step an achievable action with the right level of our involvement depending on your needs, giving you access to hands-on expertise where it will have the most impact.