Today, we’re bringing you a recipe for the perfect creator summit (yes, you have to read the story part).
Recipe serves: A two-day creator event with panels, workshops, and sessions designed to help Instagram creators grow, scale, and sell.
Difficulty level: Expert
Cook time: 12 months
If you’ve ever Googled the instructions for how to make spaghetti sauce and instead found yourself scrolling through a 1,500-word essay about the author’s summer abroad in Sicily, then congrats.
You know exactly what to expect from this blog.
Because planning a creator event like Instagram Summit by Manychat isn’t like preparing a simple weeknight meal at home, it’s an emotional journey through inspiration to conception to the final product, presented with garnish.
We’re giving you everything you asked for (how to make an IGSxM) and everything you didn’t (why we make an IGSxM) to bring you inside our team’s love letter to social media and creators.
Grab your apron, your spreadsheet, your energy drinks, and your branded lanyards, because we’re about to show you the complete, behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to create the biggest creator event on the ‘net.
You’ll need:
- 16,000 attendees from all across the globe;
- More than 50 top creators and experts,
- 45 individual sessions,
- 1 last-minute venue change,
- The biggest Google Sheets doc you’ve ever seen in your life,
- A team of mad geniuses, and
- An extreme love for creators and social media.
Let’s get started.
🍽️ Before We Begin: IGSxM’s Heartfelt and Completely Necessary Origin Story
Picture this: Anna Tutcktaia, Manychat’s Vice President of Growth Marketing, and Mike Yan, Co-founder and CEO, together on a call. Manychat had just launched its Instagram automations in partnership with Meta.
Tutcktaia said she noticed that most events for Instagram creators were either product-driven and trying to sell them something or overly broad social media conferences that didn’t dive deep into what makes Instagram unique.
“There wasn’t a dedicated space for creators to learn all things Instagram growth and monetization. We wanted to change that,” she said.
That’s when the duo had an idea: a conference entirely focused on helping creators, a place to learn from the best, connect with like-minded others, and celebrate their journeys. They bought IGSummit.com on that very call. No agenda, just a desire to help.
And all of a sudden, Instagram Summit by Manychat was born.
It all started with a Conversation(s)
IGSxM was a natural evolution of Manychat’s Conversations conference, an event based on Messenger marketing strategies that reflected Manychat’s early focus. But as the needs of the creators Manychat served evolved, so did the company itself — and so did its flagship event.
“When Instagram automation launched, it was time to build a new experience, one that matched where creators were actually spending their time and building their businesses,” Tutcktaia said.
The last Conversations conference was held virtually in 2020, and IGSxM debuted as a virtual event in 2021. This year marked Manychat’s first in-person conference since Coversations in 2019: IGSxM IRL in September.
Changing the format was a huge paradigm shift, but one that reflected an experience users said they were hungry for.
Which brings us to our first step…
⏲️ Step 1: Preheat
You can’t just stick your pans in a cold oven — you have to prepare in advance. And for IGSxM-scale events, this means starting immediately after the last Summit ends. Feedback collected at the 2024 event was crucial in shaping this year’s.
Fatima Conteh, Manychat’s Head of Events and Experiences, said the team received a huge number of questions about moving to an in-person conference after 2024. More than 70% of attendees surveyed were in favor.
“The idea of bringing together a global community of creators who have been connecting online for the past four years really excited us,” Conteh said.
And so the team started building with a new format in mind.
Slicing, dicing, and optimizing: the evolution of IGSxM
The first hurdle was ensuring the IRL and virtual components were thoughtfully designed to maximize attendee value despite their differences.
“You can’t accomplish the same things online that you can in person, at least not in the same ways. With our virtual summits, the focus was on education that felt fun, relevant to creators, and social. With the in-person event, we wanted to focus on connection, celebration, and sparking new ideas,” Conteh said.
The key was making sure they stayed connected.
Senior Events & Experiences Manager Kylie Davies has worked with Manychat since 2020. Though she first collaborated as an external agency partner, she joined the Manychat team full-time in January 2025.
It’s her third Instagram Summit overall, and she helped design the new format with Conteh and others from the Growth, Influencer, and Content teams, ensuring that key themes translated.
“The IRL event brought together the top minds of the creator economy — creators, strategists, and industry leaders — for intimate, behind-the-scenes conversations that shape what’s next. It was designed for connection, celebration, and creative exchange, the kind of energy you can only spark face-to-face,” Davies said.
“The sessions we captured live were then shared with our global community during the Virtual Summit, extending those conversations beyond the room. [It] opened those insights to our wider community, translating big-picture ideas into actionable trends and tactics for everyday growth.”
The goal was to provide attendees with the best of both worlds: in-person inspiration to fuel their online momentum.
🥣 Step 2: Mix Vision With Logistics Until Fully Combined
Even with a clear vision, the process of cooking up IGSxM was not without some lumps in the batter.
With just two weeks left until the IRL event, the original venue, Neuehouse Hollywood, abruptly closed its doors.
“As an events professional, you always prepare for the worst, but that was something no one could have planned for,” Conteh said.
Nevertheless, the team sprang into action.
When one (venue) closes, another opens (its doors)
The team screened and considered more than 30 venues with the help of production partner agency emc3. One Hotel West Hollywood was the clear winner.
But so close to the event date, the team was already in the final preparations stage. All of the work produced suddenly had to be evaluated, and in some cases, scrapped and redone.
“Entire campaigns had to be paused while we audited and updated material in the wake of the venue change,” said Caroline Brewton. (Brewton works on campaigns and events for the Manychat Content team.) “Things we had settled weeks or even months in advance were suddenly up in the air. Some communications were delayed as a result.”
The Show Goes On
While some elements of the event did indeed change with the location, Manychat still welcomed 500 creators and experts from all over the world to IRL on September 19, where sessions by creators like Colin & Samir and Zach King were recorded to share at the virtual event in October.
IRL attendees were treated to a special, behind-the-scenes view of the sessions’ taping and workshops about monetization and production, as well as being the first to learn about new product updates from CEO Yan during his keynote.
Chances to meet other creators were baked into the day, with networking breaks scattered through the grounds of One Hotel and a catered rooftop afterparty with drinks.
Surprise-and-delight moments were carefully placed throughout, from a personality quiz determining attendees’ event swag to a special telephone activation. No opportunity to increase the guest experience was ignored; witty signage to greet and say goodbye was the first – and last – touchpoint.
Despite the success of IRL, the team wasn’t ready to celebrate just yet…Summit Virtual was just over a month away.
🥘 Step 3: Sauté Sessions Until They Are Fully Cooked
The virtual agenda, with 45 sessions, was more focused on tactical learning and strategies. It was broken into three tracks:
- Grow the Right Audience
- Think like a Business
- Sell Smarter, Not Harder
Together, the three tracks represented everything a creator needs to scale and monetize on Instagram: engaged fans, a business plan, and help getting paid.
Not every session was for every creator; the goal was to have advice applicable to creators just starting as well as those further in their journeys, focusing on maintaining authenticity even as they grew a team.
Tutcktaia connected the design of Virtual back to Manychat’s mission of empowering people to grow through automation and authentic connection:
“Summit brings that mission to life […] We give creators access to strategies, automation playbooks, and stories from those who’ve already done it, so they can build systems that scale their impact and income.”
🥫 Step 4: Season Guest Experience to Taste
“The weeks between Virtual and IRL were spent fine-tuning the guest experience,” Brewton said. “Not just refining sessions — our incredible Web team (led by Nikita Krivonosov) actually built the platform we hosted Virtual on with user experience in mind.”
Another key piece was guest communications; Dustin Dooling, Content Manager, organized the moderation effort, scripting reminders in advance and marshalling a team of 33 who responded to thousands of user questions and comments during the event.
“We reacted in real time to popular guest requests, actually changing strategies to support guest requests as the event was going on. It was all an incredibly intentional effort, but we’re always trying to get better. Responding to requests and previous years’ feedback is crucial,” Brewton said.
🍴 Step 5: Say Thanks and Dig in
According to Brewton, there are too many people to recognize and thank to do them justice in a sound bite.
“Dozens of people worked incredibly hard on this event from Manychat’s offices across the globe,” she said. “This event touches all departments. From our external partner emc3, to Manychat Events, Design, People, PR, Content, Influencer, Finance, our Growth team, who helped us distribute information, our incredible Social Media team, who captured everything, our Community team, who organized a follow-up event, our speakers… I could write three pages of just names. It wouldn’t capture how many extra hours people put in, or how much caffeine was consumed in this process. It was all a big love letter to creators and the content they create and share.”
Just like grandmother used to make.
