Hosting Meet Magento New York 2023: Community, Collaboration & Celebration
The Big Apple is home to many pivotal events, including none other than Meet Magento New York. This year, Above The Fray had the honor of hosting this landmark event and connecting members of the ecommerce community to spark conversations around innovation, trends, and the future of the industry. Meet Magento New York is one of those rare opportunities where individuals who work in a very digital world can get together face-to-face and foster connections that keep the community alive. It is an occasion for passing the proverbial ecommerce torch and bridging misunderstandings. Because hosting was such a meaningful opportunity for us, we wanted to share some pearls of wisdom, insights, and memorable moments from the event.
What Meet Magento New York Means for the Ecommerce Community
For the last nine years, Meet Magento New York has been a cornerstone, uniting professionals across the ecommerce industry. The ecommerce platform that’s bringing everyone together? Magento, of course. With one of the widest install bases globally, Magento exerts an impact on the industry that we seek to maintain and grow. The annual event serves as an indispensable meeting of the minds in our community, by providing a balanced agenda and equal opportunities to advocates of Adobe, Magento, and open-source initiatives. It creates a space where the ecommerce community can address difficult issues head-on. Fortunately, this is not a group of folks that shy away from friction or difficult conversations.
ATF’s Experience Hosting MM23NYC
Above The Fray’s involvement with Meet Magento New York began when our CEO, Noah Oken-Berg connected with Marsha Naidoo, the face and the heart of Meet Magento New York. Marsha and Noah had met while serving as committee members of the Magento Association. Our “Make It Better” mission aligned perfectly with the goal of transforming conversations around Magento, creating space to build bridges between organizations, and fostering collaborations and growth in the ecommerce industry.
Our “Make It Better” approach to hosting this event led to several positive collaborations and discussions that sprouted on stage and in meetings at Meet Magento New York 2023. Overall, the enthusiastic response we received from sponsors, speakers, and attendees proved to us that all of the legwork our team put in to create this safe space for open discussion was worth the effort to further grow and promote understanding in our community.
Expanding Meet Magento New York
This year, we made the call to expand the event from one day to two full days to create more opportunities for those in the Magento community to share their knowledge and experience. We reached out to the international community to submit their talk ideas and they did not disappoint.
In 2023, we received double the amount of speaker applications than the year prior which speaks volumes about how much members of the ecommerce community want to be part of Meet Magento New York. The talk evaluation process was extremely competitive and our review committee did an outstanding job of assessing the blind submissions and selecting the very best topics from more than 140 submissions.
We look forward to seeing the excitement to snag a spot on stage at Meet Magento New York continue to grow as we head into 2024 for the 10th anniversary of this special event.
More Highlights from Meet Magento New York 2023
This year’s event was held at the historic New World Stages theater, near Times Square off Broadway in Manhattan. With this state-of-the-art venue as the backdrop for the event, it’s no surprise this year’s Meet Magento New York was a showstopper. With 500+ attendees from 30+ countries, supported by 25+ sponsors, this year’s event achieved new levels of diversity and inclusiveness. We were very proud to welcome 18 women speakers, the highest number to date, and a record number of European speaker submissions, meaning an ever increasing number of international guests.
New Orange Awards
To pay homage to Magento’s roots, Above The Fray created a new segment of the event–an award ceremony celebrating the outstanding achievements of merchants in the Magento community. Drawing on the history of both New York, the colony that Dutch settlers renamed the New Orange in 1673, and Magento’s historical orange logo, the ceremony was christened the New Orange Awards.
For us, the award ceremony was one of the standout highlights of MM23NYC and we know many in attendance felt the same sense of excitement leading up to the ceremony.
The judging panel, comprised of independent community members whose identities remained confidential until the event, assessed nominees based on impact, ingenuity, innovation, and industry relevance. Reviewers’ ratings were kept confidential from each other to ensure unbiased and impartial evaluation process.
The New Orange Award categories included:
- Future Shock Award
- Community Forward Award
- Design Curve Award
- Ground Breaker Award
- B2Brilliance Award
- Global Impact Award
- Tapestry Award
Each of the winners were announced on the main stage, awarded their trophy, and invited to take photographs with the MCs. To learn more about the award categories, visit www.meetmagentonyc.com
The energy and excitement of the award winners and the partners who nominated them was contagious. It was a wonderful way to wrap the event and it carried over to the after party at Bowlero where everyone got to unwind and debrief on all that they had taken away from MM23NYC.
Feedback from Attendees
Of course, don’t just take our word for it. Here’s what people who attended the event had to say about it:
Want to see more photos? Visit the Meet Magento NYC Gallery.
