My friend, Sian, and I took our annual trip to the ExCeL last weekend to the Summer in the City YouTube convention. 

We attended the 'Creator's Day' on the Friday and were privy to lots of inside information about running a YouTube channel, such as the equipment and management. I'm not going to lie, I've definitely considered a YouTube channel, and every time I go to SitC I get really excited and inspired, and my mind literally whizzes at 100mph thinking of all the cool videos I could create. I'm just uber worried about it affecting my work, bearing in mind that I work in a secondary school.

When we arrived, we were handed a schedule for the day, along with a map of the hall, and between us we decided which panels to attend.

The first panel we attended was hosted by BBTV, Riyadh Khalaf, Kaya Lili, Kou Chaichian and Ed Brew, and was called, 'Monetize This!'. The creators discussed their experiences of working with brands, as well as other ways that they make money while managing their channel - and in some cases, channels!

Next we attended a panel called, 'Being Transparent with your Audience', hosted by Ara Bozadjian, Sanne Vliegenthart, Melanie Murphy and Lucy Moon. Admittedly we didn't stay in this panel for very long as a lot of the information being discussed was about branding and we decided that a lot of it was repetition, so popped out for a spot of lunch at Subway!

After a much needed lunch break we headed into the next panel, which Sian was particularly looking forward to, as one of her favourite YouTubers, Hannah Witton, was supposed to be hosting, but sadly it had been cancelled, so we took a walk around the venue and browsed some of the awesome craft and merchandise stalls.

I couldn't believe my luck when I saw the Blogosphere stall! I've been an avid collector and reader since issue 2 (!!!) and got chatting to the lovely lady at the stand about how much I love the magazine and how hard it is for me to get hold of it in the shops... little did I know that I was actually speaking to the FOUNDER AND EDITOR of the magazine, Alice Audley!!! I ended up (finally) subscribing to the magazine so that I will never miss an issue again, phew!