Congratulations on listing your ii event!
- First timer? Let us know you’d like to host here.
- Community member? Get started by listing your event right away.
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When submitting a new Salon listing on the website, please follow the guidelines below…
Let’s use Cameron Harwick’s debut Salon as an example. Here is a screenshot of the event listing:
Table of Contents
1. Title
Capitalisation of titles in English is its own thing. Please follow this guide.
2. Start time
Please specify the start time for one of the following locations, so our audience can orientate:
- Los Angeles / San Francisco
- New York
- London
- Berlin / Paris
- Mumbai
- Sydney
When in doubt, use World Time Buddy, where you can compare three time zones at the same time.
3. Image
Please choose a horizontal, rectangular image for your event’s header.
In general, the algorithms on Twitter, etc. tend to like bright, red/yellow, human face centred, figurative, non-nature, and non-pattern images. Bright and human-focused images will therefore be easier to promote and be more visible to people who may be interested.
Here are some good examples:
Some tips on where to find images:
- IMDB photos
- Film stills
- Free stock photos
- Art blogs (please indicate the artist as Image Source in the event text)
- Wikimedia Commons (no need to indicate source unless stated or indicated by the code in the description)
- History of popular music
- Online museums (indicate the museum as source)
- History of art in general
If you search using Google Images, we recommend searching only for high-resolution images. Go: Tools > Size > Large.
4. Intro sentence
Make this maximum two lines, clear, and bold. Include your name, that this is a Salon, Workshop Salon, series or not, etc. Make your name a hyperlink to your Twitter or website (later to your Host page…)
Example:
In his debut Interintellect Salon, Cameron Harwick will examine the mindsets of our ancestors, and whether we have anything in common with them.
5. Main text
Explain what the Salon will be about and why we should be interested. Make it obvious that your topic is personal but relevant to everyone — that it’s special and niche, but also something everyone has an opinion about and should know more about!
People come to the ii to have the conversations they can’t have anywhere else 🙂
Example:
The end of Cameron’s main text includes the famed “In this [Interintellect] Salon, …” formula which further helps the attendee understand what to expect at the Salon.
In this Salon, we’ll probe some of these different stories, and ask questions like:
- What are the pitfalls of telling a story like this? Can it be told without veering into declinism or triumphalism?
- Is it possible to answer the question from “within” a modern mindset? Can, or should, we try to “step outside”, and if so, how do we know when we’ve succeeded?
- Can “stepping outside” like that change the way we relate to modern moral phenomena like authenticity or individualism? By stepping outside, do we give up the ability to evaluate any particular change as good or bad, healthy or unhealthy?
- Given the staggering variety within both modern and premodern societies and minds, is it even possible to generalize this broadly?
- Is there a straightforward path from premodern thinking to modern thinking, or might contact with modern Western thinking react in different and unfamiliar ways with recently modernizing or as-yet premodern peoples?
6. “Save the Dates”
This is a good idea for tracks especially — but it can be included in series texts too.
Here is one example (from an unpublished Salon) of how a Host might choose to add the “Save the Dates” into her text.
Example:
7. Reading list
This is a very flexible category…
Some Hosts only read one poem during their Salon, while others ask you to read the Iliad first!
But the general rule for most normal Salons is to have 4 to 7 newspaper article length readings included which the audience can be reasonably expected to read, and which will help align your attendees coming from such different backgrounds and often meeting for the first time.
Include good media outlets, well-known Substackers, your own writing or writing by your fellow Interintellects — but also TED talks or other lectures, or accessible academic papers.
Example:
Cameron’s reading list looks like this:
” Good to read pre-Salon:
- Why Are We in the West So Weird? A Theory
- Fundamentalism is Countercultural Modernism
- Reason as Memetic Immune Disorder
- Why Is Money Morally Suspect?
- The Bicameral Mind and our Constant Inner Monologue
- The Godless Delusion ”
Some Hosts also add videos – in this case we tend to say “read or watch before the Salon”, or simply “check out….”.
8. Time zones
As a Host it is your task to add the relevant time zones for your Salons. We try to focus on the major well-known time zones.
We only add time zones where the Salon’s start time falls between 8 am and 11 pm.
As usual, World Time Buddy is indeed a good friend!
9. Footer
We add info on the Zoom link, the student discount and the code of conduct.
In most cases, we also add image source (when in doubt, err on the safe side: it’s better to add image source than not).
We have temporarily removed information on free attendance and community referrals, as all that will change when the subscriptions are launched across the next 1-2 weeks. More info on this soon.
IMPORTANT: Copying the footer, including time zones, from other events and then editing the info is fully OK. We do it too 🙂
10. Tickets
Number of tickets
We like to set the number of tickets for Salons that are of “general interest” at 50, and Salons we’d prefer to remain intimate at 35.
Note that Salons won’t always sell out in full (and even when they do, not everyone will show up). In general we err on the higher end, and if must we edit the “capping” when a certain number has been reached.
Timeframe of booking
Tickets should start selling right away, and can sell all the way up to the start of the event.
Price of tickets
Interintellect tickets start at $10 and can be set anywhere above that by the Host.
If you feel that the value of a specific Salon, due to how niche the topic is, or because of a special guest, or because of your person, work, and knowledge, the tickets should run at $50, then that’s where you should sell. (If it doesn’t sell well, you can always lower it. Raising it is impossible, though.)
Based on our experience so far, people value more expensive tickets more: they are far more likely to show up, prepare and be a good attendee during the Salon. (This was the reason why we raised our ticket prices in November 2020, and both turn-up and returning-for-more numbers went up.)
Altogether, we encourage you to experiment: with topics, time zones, start times, formats, series vs tracks, promotion, ticket pricing… The best way to get good at hosting amazing ii Salons is to host many amazing ii Salons, and learn, iterate, refine your specific style, voice, and persona.
Best of luck, and we’ve got your back!