In this episode, I sit down with Federica Tabone and Claudio Nichele, two of the key organizers of the upcoming Verona International Sketchnote Camp, to discuss how this pioneering event brings together the ISC and EVP communities for the first time.
Listen to the episode here:
We dig into the Bar Camp Plus format, what makes Verona the perfect backdrop, and why this gathering is designed around active participation, collective learning, and community connection.
Running Order
Introduction and overview of the Verona Sketchnote Camp
The story behind organizing the Verona event
The collaboration between ISC and EVP communities
The Full Bar Camp Plus format explained
The interactive, participant-led sessions and collective harvesting
Cultural highlights of Verona: history, food, and city experiences
Event logistics: tickets, prices, and optional dinners
What is a Bar Camp? Explanation and twists for Verona
The concept of collective learning and post-event harvesting
The beauty and culture of Verona as the event backdrop
Food, networking, and the Italian experience
Ticket options, early bird pricing, and optional activities
Practical information: dinner and lunch costs
The community spirit and opportunities for meaningful connections
Closing remarks: excitement for the event and community gratitude
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Transcript
Mike Rohde: Hey everyone, it’s Mike Rohde and I’m here with my friends Federica Tabone and Claudio Nichele. Welcome to the show, you guys. It’s great to have you here.
Federica Tabone: I might, it’s a pleasure, thank you.
Claudio Nichele: Hi everyone.
MR: And so the reason I have Federica and Claudio on the show is they are some of the main organizers of the International Sketchnote Camp, plus European Visual Practitioners Sketchnote Camp in Verona, Italy. And I wanted to have them on for this first episode of the Sketchnote podcast to talk a little bit about the event, which is very important to me and to many sketchnoters around the world where we get together and we hang out and learn and have a great weekend together. So let’s begin first with Federica, talk to us a little bit about the story. Like how did this event happen? I know I have my perspective, but I’d like to hear your perspective. And then we’ll talk a little bit about the partnership between the ISC team and the European Visual Practitioners, EVP team.
FT: Yeah, we were all together in Birmingham last summer and talking with Claudio, the idea of organizing the next meeting in Italy came up very spontaneously and so we came to you just to propose you this new idea, why new? Because this time in Verona two different communities, but very similar also, joined together to participate to a unique event. And we are talking about the ISC community, International Sketchnote Camp, and the EVP community, European Visual Practitioner. I belong to both. And my idea was to give to all the opportunity to experience the vibes and the intention of these two communities. So I found in Claudio a marvelous partner in this organization. And Claudio, I’m so grateful for your generosity in organizing these events with your skills in this area. And we are creating a huge event because, Beyond Visual as the title of the event means that we will go farther than markers and papers. But we will use paper to create 3D objects that can represent metaphorically concepts and ideas. So this time we will use hands not only to draw, but also to create shapes. And it will be a place to experiment a new way to be a sketchnoter, visual practitioner, a graphic recorder. And so Beyond Visual is like an experiment for both sides, the two joint communities and this particular angle of our profession. And the more added value is the cultural side because we will have the participation from different countries. Far East, Middle East, Americas, Europe, and there you will have the opportunity to discover culture because just simply looking at participants during a workshop you can understand the different ways to be a professional. You can discover the most common tools, for example, that professionals use in their everyday job. But don’t forget that in this event, you will have sketchnoters and the professionals, visual facilitators. And so we can learn from each other. Mike, these are the first things that I want to share with you.
MR: That’s wonderful. I love the combination and the fact that these communities have crossed over in the past. So it’s really great that we make an official formal collaboration. I think it just makes sense. It expands the community, opens each community up to the other in a more formal way. And I think that’s really great. I think it just shows maturity of our profession and our interest area. I think that the thing that was most interesting to me about what you are planning to do is you’re doing a full bar camp with some twists. So I’d love to have Claudio talk a little bit about what a bar camp is for those who might be listening or watching and thinking, I don’t even know what that is. Explain it to me and what are the twists that they have in mind.
CN: Let’s start with the full bar camp mode that we wanted since the beginning with Federica for our event in Verona. Let’s start by something which is more common and well known by people. When you attend a conference, typically you are there sitting into a conference theater, sometimes into the dark, watching or listening to speakers on the stage, and you are quite passive there. Maybe if you are lucky, you will ask a question and receive a response from the speakers, but you never interact, or very few, you have very few interactions with the other participants. A bar camp is called also an un-conference, which is totally the opposite. There is no stage, no speakers there speaking for a long time, but everyone is a participant, an active participant. And during a bar camp, you can propose your own workshops, your own sessions, a session where you want to discuss about a topic. You have a burning question about how to do something, technology or about the business itself, just how to start with one specific practice. You can launch your question and the other participants will join you in your room, in your corner to
enrich the conversation, to respond to your question and to actively participate with the other participants in your own session. In practical terms, during the three days of the event in Verona, on the Friday, we will together create an agenda for the day after. So those who want to offer a training or want to explain a practice, or me if I have a question how to become a professional, I will come to the large board, put there my proposition for a session for the day after. And the day after, during the Saturday, we’ll have two series of parallel sessions where the owners of the session will go to a specific room. We will be in a university with plenty of beautiful classrooms. And those who are interested to join you for your session are free to come in your room.
To stay there as long as they want to stay. If they want to move to another topic, because as they say, I’m interested in three topics, they are free to move to go to the other rooms. And we’ll have like that two series of parallel sessions on the Saturday. On the Sunday, and this is totally new in the full bar camp mode, Federica and I wanted to have something like a collective harvesting. Because on Saturday, as individuals, we join specific rooms, specific sessions, to listen, to learn, to interact with others, but it will be something very personal. On the Sunday morning, we want to work with a group of participants to harvest together what are the learnings we had the day before, to go to the highest level of knowledge and learnings.
So then when you leave the event, you not only will leave with your own takeaways, but the takeaways from the group, the bunch of people who were in the same rooms as you there. And because you are visual thinkers, we are thinking to propose a very large landscape where we will have this collective harvesting all together. These are the three days, more or less, around a bar camp, and we call it with Federica a bar camp plus.
MR: Love it, love it. Well, that’s really great. I think that’s exciting and it provides all the different things that you want. And it becomes more personal, I think more interactive than a traditional event would be where you’re just absorbing information, you’re more active. So that’s very exciting as well. Talk to me a little bit about the city. Federica, you live close by to Verona. The only thing I know about Verona is Shakespeare and Romeo and Juliet. Tell us a little bit more about the city and what we can expect as we come to the event.
FT: Yeah, you can have some suggestions from our logo because as you can see we have the Romeo and Juliet balcony and the arena of the Verona that is very similar to Colosseum in Rome. Think about that we will have our official dinner on Saturday evening in front of the arena so we can appreciate the shades, the color of the city during the sunset. And before the dinner, we will have the guided tour. So you discover not only the most famous spots of Verona, but also the hidden part, the story behind the city. And think about that Verona is not so big, so it is enjoyable to walk through and you can switch from the history to the nature in a very quick way because in Verona there is a beautiful river and inside the university where the event will take place.
You can see the river and a medieval bridge, the Ponte di Castelvecchio, bridge of Castelvecchio, and you can be inspired by nature and history inside the venue. And don’t forget that you will have also a gelato experience. When you will be free to explore Verona by yourself, you can join a special ice cream shop. We have a deal with this shop. And so with your ticket, you can enter, you can choose the ice cream you prefer, and you will be in the middle of the city center in front of an ancient Romanic place. Verona is not only nature and history and beauty, but is also food, of course.
So, Claudio and I prepared a beautiful Italian food experience, and during the lunch that we will have, you will taste the different Italian courses. And during the entire experience, you will have a coffee break, and you can access to this coffee area with Italian coffee, sweets, fruit in a very silent space that is dedicated to the networking moment. So as Claudio mentioned before, we took in consideration one of the most common desires of people as participants in these events.
Due to our experience, sometimes you are in a rush. So you need to have a recap of some workshop. In this networking area, you can talk and you will have your time to understand, learn from each other and continue your networking moment.
MR: Wonderful. Well, it sounds like you’ve got everything planned and you’ve accommodated for having been at many of these events, right? You’ve learned a lot from the previous events and made this event adapt to the things that you thought would be beneficial. So that’s really great to hear. Let’s get into the final specific details. So Claudio, you talked to us about the ticket options and also in addition to the standard ticket, the add-ons, which you can do. I know there’s a few add-ons that someone might consider, so talk about those.
CN: Yes, exactly. To join us, you can buy three different tickets. Unfortunately, in two days time, only one, the standard ticket will be available. Otherwise, if you are a member of the EVP community, you still have two days to buy your discounted ticket. The early bird tickets are already sold out and it gives us a sign that we have a real demand of people to join us. Otherwise, a few days before the event, everyone will be able to buy a ticket to join us, which is at the price of 355 euros, not dollars for American friends, euros. And this will give you access to the full event, a three day event, which includes the lunch, the coffee experience during the whole day. And it’s not only during the coffee breaks, but the Italian coffee stand will be open the full day. What else? The optional tickets, because we are there for three days, we can spend a night together at the pizzeria, an Italian restaurant, cooking pizza on Saturday night in front of the arena.
MR: I think.
CN: It’s a beautiful place. We went there, we tested it with Federica a few days ago. And this is an option. You’re not obliged, but if you want to continue the conversation of today around a good pizza, you can buy your ticket for the Saturday dinner. And because you are finishing on Sunday, around one o’clock PM, and we don’t want to leave people to go around the city to find their own snack or another restaurant. We are offering a second optional opportunity to buy your own food and we will share it on site at the university site, in the catering space. So these are two optionals but at a very affordable price, not too expensive, even for a city like Verona. And with, again, Italian food and we are putting a lot of pressure on the catering to offer a real Italian food experience to our friends who are joining us.
MR: Of course. So the main ticket, which I think will be what’s available when this releases next week, is 355 euro. What was the cost for the dinner and what is the cost for the luncheon on Sunday?
CN: Around 20 euros. I don’t know. Yeah, around 24 euros if I’m correct. 24 euros for the pizzeria. And Federica, you have a better...
MR: That’s reasonable.
FT: and 21 for the lunch on Sunday.
CN: It costs you more time and more money to go outside and to find a place where you will eat. And you stay with us and we can continue all the conversation we want to continue to have.
MR: Right.
FT: Yeah, for sure.
MR: That’s great. Yeah. And I think a lot of it, I would always prioritize how do we keep together because we like being together and hanging out together. So this just provides more opportunity and then maybe sit by someone you wanted to talk with and have your dinner or your luncheon with them and catch up and chat with them. So that’s really great.
CN: We’ll have a full first floor just for us and we can choose the places where we want to stay and it’s a wonderful place.
MR: That’s great. And I think these prices all sound really reasonable to me. If you’ve ever been to an event and you’ve seen the prices that events can be, this is a very reasonable price. So thank you for working so hard to make it possible for even the hobbyists if they wish to come, or professionals who want to extend their visual thinking skills, all the way up to the pros who do this day in and day out. So I think that’s great that you’ve made it so available and accessible.
That’s really wonderful. Well, this has been a great discussion. I’m excited, just listening to this discussion. I’m more excited than ever to practice my Italian and looking forward to coming at the end of July to the event and seeing all the friends and new friends that I’ll meet who will be there. Thank you for making time to be here. Thank you for taking the lead with the EVP on making this happen and making it so affordable and available to our community. I really appreciate that and want to thank both of you for your hard efforts and all the stuff you are going through that we’ll never know to make this wonderful for us. Thank you from the community.
CN: Grazie. And Federica, big grazie to all EVP and NIC members who are supporting us to organize this event, because this is really a joint event, two communities with friends from both the communities supporting us with doing several tasks in parallel and during the event as well. So it’s an opportunity with this interview to say a big grazie in Italian. Thank you to all of them as well.
FT: Thank you, Mike.
MR: That’s great. That’s great. Well, it really does show our community, you know, is one of the friendliest communities in the world. And it’s proven by this event, which is restarted every year by a new community member or members and moved to another city. And, you know, all you really get is the mailing list and some ideas and the rest is up to you. Each time our community delivers with a really wonderful experience. And I have no doubt that this will be a wonderful experience too. So thank you for being here and sharing all the details with us so we can get excited about going to this event at the end of July and the early August.
FT: Thank you, Michael. We are waiting for you.
MR: Yeah, I’m waiting too. I can’t wait. For those who are watching or listening, this will be another episode of the Sketchnote podcast. You can look forward to more episodes coming after this one. Until the next one, talk to you soon.
CN: Thank you. Bye bye. Ciao ciao.
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Mike is the author of The Sketchnote Handbook and The Sketchnote Workbook, bestselling books that teach regular people how to start sketchnoting and build a regular sketchnoting practice.
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