Conferences for Badass Polyglots
THE BP STORY
2013x
2013
The idea
6 years after organizing a successful international conference, Csaba finished a massive translation project and posted about this on social media. Some colleagues started to comment ‘Now you have time to organize a proper conference again’.
Within 30 minutes, we had a venue, a date, and a domain name.
One thing was certain: If I do it again, this time I want to do it as my own event, not somebody else’s conference.
The hard work
In September, Csaba started to build a website, and started building a programme. Speakers were mostly recruited from personal acquaintances from other translation conferences, while some speakers applied after news of a new conference started to spread on social media.
Ticketing was next (using a third-party platform).
When registration started in December, the first 2 tickets were sold within the first minute.
The idea
6 years after organizing a successful international conference, Csaba finished a massive translation project and posted about this on social media. Some colleagues started to comment ‘Now you have time to organize a proper conference again’.
Within 30 minutes, we had a venue, a date, and a domain name.
One thing was certain: If I do it again, this time I want to do it as my own event, not somebody else’s conference.
The hard work
In September, Csaba started to build a website, and started building a programme. Speakers were mostly recruited from personal acquaintances from other translation conferences, while some speakers applied after news of a new conference started to spread on social media.
Ticketing was next (using a third-party platform).
When registration started in December, the first 2 tickets were sold within the first minute.
2014
BP14 in Budapest
The very first BP Translation Conference finally started in a 3-star hotel in Budapest, near Heroes’ square, with 145 translators attending from all over Europe, with a few more colleagues from North America.
3 simultaneous tracks, and a gala dinner overlooking a lake in nearby City Park.
We printed the attendees’ first names in large print on the badges, with all other information in smaller print — this may be obvious now, but back then it was a novel concept.
Even though this was our first event, we received some highly encouraging feedback: ‘You guys have raised the bar in translation conferences’ / ‘I’ve been at several large events in the U.S., but the entire atmosphere here is far more friendly’
New logo designed in a café
When it became clear that BP Translation Conferences will move abroad, and each event will take place in a different city and a different country, a new logo had to be designed — one that does not include the year.
BP founder Csaba Bán have always loved scribbling, often playing with the sahpes of letters, so the new BP logo started to take shape. Based on the rudimentary deisgn, a graphic designer created a vector image that can be used for professional printing purposes.
(No branded image back then, just a plain stock photo for the FB event)
Upload your photos here — we will publish them on BP14 Flashback page
2015
Upload your photos here — we will publish them on BP15 Flashback page
What is BP anyway?
At first, ‘BP’ stood for Budapest, the organizer’s home town. With plans to move the event abroad, a new backronym had to be invented, even before the first BP14 took place.
After some brainstorming, the concept of ‘Business & Practice’ was born — this can be used anywhere. Ever since BP14, these two broad areas define the scope of each BP Translation Conference.
BP15 Translation Conference in Zagreb
The second instalment of our event took place in the Croatian capital, an easy driving distance from the organizer’s home town.
Once again, we had 145 attendees, representing over 30 countries. Our keynote speaker was Chris Durban.
For the first time, we offered day trips after the conference.
2016
BP16 in Prague
Our third BP Translation Conference took place in Beautiful Prague, at hotel Don Giovanni. As it has become a pattern by now, sessions ran in three parallel tracks, over two full days.
For the first time, all sessions were recorded, as a first step towards creating BP Video Library, a growing collection of conference videos.
Attendance rose to over 180 people, from about 35 countries.
At BP16, translator-turned-comedian Konstantin Kisin started his 4-conference tenure as Master of Ceremony.
The gala dinner took place Prague’s Art Nouveau gem, Obecny dům, while the farewell reception and party was celebrated right under Charles bridge — a perfect spot for group photos.
Planning ahead
Up until BP16, we used a separate domain name each year. With the growing popularity of the event, it was time to plan ahead for more efficient ways of running the conference. This included a new domain name (BPconf.com), with a new page within the domain for each year’s events.
We also got rid of expensice third-party ticketing platforms, and started selling tickets directly on our website.
Upload your photos here — we will publish them on BP16 Flashback page
2017
Upload your photos here — we will publish them on BP17 Flashback page
BP17 in Budapest — in a beautiful cinema
BP17 Translation Conference returned to the Hungarian capital, but at a different venue. In fact, one day of the event took place in an historical cinema, with a series of TEDx-style short talks, while the other day was held in a traditional hotel setting.
Keynote speaker Henry Liu, then-president of FIT, provocatively foretold that there will be ‘no translators in 2025’, with algorithms taking over.
As a first, we had a little networking game during the pre-conference reception, where every attendee was given a piece of paper with a sentence in a particular language. There were no two identical pieces of paper. Attendees were supposed to find other people with the same sentence in a different language or a different sentence written in the same language as their own.
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2018
BP18 in Vienna
Moving around in Central Europe, our fifth conference took place in majestic Vienna. Following the format from the previous year, this time again one day took place in a cinema, while the other day in a hotel. In fact, our first 5-star hotel in BP history!
Almost 300 people attended from over 40 countries, and our group photo was taken in Vienna’s City Park.
The conference boasted three networking dinners: a welcome reception in a traditional Viennese café, a gala dinner at the city hall, while a farewell dinner in a hip bar, complete with a DJ set.
To this day, Vienna was the easiest host city to deal with from an organizational point of view.
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Upload your photos here — we will publish them on BP18 Flashback page
2019
Upload your photos here — we will publish them on BP19 Flashback page
BP19 in Bologna — unique in many ways
In the history of BP conference host cities, Bologna was the first one outside the familiar Mitteleuropa comfort zone of the organizer. Also, the first one that he had not visited before.
When announcing Bologna as the host city of BP19 in Italy (‘Bel Paese’), many Italians revelled that this was the ‘food capital’ of Italy. Well, for non-Italians, the entire country counts as the food capital of Europe 🙂
At BP19, we returned to the older format of two full days at a hotel, with 3 parallel tracks. There was no farewell dinner — instead, we had a farewell reception right after the closing session. This format proved to be popular, so we’ve kept it ever since.
Somehow, the organizer’s 50th birthday coincided with the gala dinner 🙂
Eventually, BP19 in Bologna turned out to be the last BP conference before the pandemic hit, and for years, we had to dwell on the memory of those few beautiful days in Italy…
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2020
BP20 in Nuremberg…
We started the year in an upbeat mood, with the first 100 tickets sold within 24 hours. The conference was coming to Germany, where most of our attendees have always come from. By late January the organizer had to adjust the expected number of attendees to 380… but by the first week of February ticket sales halted in the wake of worrying news about an epidemic that made its way to Europe.
By mid-March, as the world came to a halt, it became clear that BP20 cannot be held the way we all wanted.
… or online
Facing an extremely difficult situation, the organizer realized the only solution was going forward and pivoting the event to an online platform. Within 5 weeks, all sessions were switched over to Zoom, a platform new to most of us back then. This move also allowed allowed us to attract online attendees from a far wider geographical scope than ever before. We ended up with almost 500 online attendees from over 60 countries.
30 hours of BP on 30 September
We celebrated St Jerome’s day with a unique online event: 30 hours of presentations and networking sessions in a dozen of different languages. This free event drew almost 2000 attendees at some point, from over 70 countries, with a core of a few hundred who were present for much of their waking hours.
Upload your screenshots here — we will publish them on this year’s Flashback page
2021
Upload your screenshots here — we will publish them on this year’s Flashback page
BP21 online again
At the end of BP20, the organizer announced that BP21 would take place in Kraków, Poland — assuming the lockdowns of spring 2020 would be over by June that year. As we all learned the hard way, the pandemic and the lockdown were to stay with us for quite some time.
BP21 took place online, following the pattern started a year earlier: All sessions took place in the European afternoon hours, in 2 tracks. This arrangement allowed attendees to carry on with their daily routines, and tune in for the event only for a few hours each day — from a wide range of time zones from the Americas to East Asia.
Online event in Spanish
Make the best of the forced lockdown and the oppotunities presented by online events, BP kicked off the year with an online conference in Spanish. 30 presentations and workshops. Attendees and speakers came from almost all countries in Latin America, but also from Spain and several other countries in Europe.
2022
BP22 in Lisbon… and online
Our first live conference since BP19 took us to the Portuguese capital — mostly because this country reached high vaccination rates, and there was no restriction on holding in-person events.
BP21 was held as a hybrid event, with all sessions live-streamed to an eager online audience. All told, there were over 210 attendees in Lisbon, and about the same number online.
Apps to keep us connected
We’ve used Slido for audience engagement since BP17, allowing attendees to ask questions away while the speaker is still talking, or the speaker to poll the audience and display the results on screen.
We’ve been using a conference app since BP18 in Vienna, to facilitate networking among attendees, and to help them find the right session during the event.
Both of these solutions came in handy during our first hybrid event, when remote attendees felt connected to those present in person.
Upload your BP22 photos here — we will publish them on the BP22 Flashback page
2023
Upload your BP23 photos here — we will publish them on the BP23 Flashback page
BP23 in Utrecht
After dealing with some unexpected challenges regarding the venues, BP23 was eventually taking place as originally planned. On the actual conference days, we only had to deal with unexpected rain. Well, unexpected for the non-Dutch, that is.
After Bologna, Utrecht was the second non-capital host city in BP history, and this proved to be a great choice, as the city is easily walkable, and offers a great alternative to more expensive and more crowded Amsterdam.
At BP23, well over 200 translators enjoyed each other’s company, learning about our trade, and giving each other an annual boost of motivation.
Winter Translation Forum
WTF? That’s right! Our multilingual online event also took place on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday — who said we cannot redefine the meaning an abbreviation?
For two consecutive years, Winter Translation Forum saw well over a hundred great presentations and workshops in over 12 different languages.
2024
BP24 in Seville
The hotel at BP24 was without doubt our most beautiful venue yet, complete with a swimming pool. Seville itself was another drawcard, with its charming and easily walkable old town.
As for the conference itself, the catchphrase of the year was ‘Brain Power — My intelligence is not artificial’. There was a clear interest in AI-related subjects. We concluded that translators are here to stay, but we need to adapt to new technology.
The welcome reception by the hotel’s pool and the gala dinner overlooking the river served as great backdrops for creating some unforgettable moments of bonding between like-minded translators.
10 years of BP Translation Conferences
Our first decade took us to some of the most beautiful cities around Europe, we helped form thousands of friendships (and some couples).
And, perhaps most importantly, these conferences helped a wide range of freelance translators celebrate our profession, regain their confidence, giving them motivation to go forward.
2025
BP25 in Kraków
Ready for the next chapter in the history of BP Translation Conferences? Join us in Beautiful Poland!
Kraków is the country’s most beautiful and culturally richest city. These days it’s in full swing, with a lively café scene, an easily walkable city centre, and plenty of things to see.
Oh, the conference hotel has a rooftop pool, overlooking the old town.
Check out the event page for more information (click on the image)
