I had the pleasure of presenting at the International Federation for Theatre Research (IFTR) in Cologne, Germany this week. If you’re thinking that’s an odd choice for a musician, you’d be slightly right, but even though it says “theatre”, really it was all about performance. My research does look into performance a lot, and it was useful to see how I might conceive of a music practice beyond music studies, and instead view it as a broader performance tradition. The people were great, the talks interesting, and the city is wonderful.

Having said this, I felt like there is something out of place with conferences now. I suppose conferences are important to find out about new research, meet others in the field, and get feedback on your research. This was, however, more important pre-internet: we can find out about new research through online sources; and it is a lot easier to find and communicate with others in the field too (though nothing beats the in-person networking of a conference). So from these things, I think modern conferences are primarily an opportunity to get feedback on our research, and also to meet new people in the field. Yet it feels like we still prioritise new research as the main objective.

By this, I mean that I feel (and this could just be me as a new researcher) that conferences expect really polished research, where everything is finished and wrapped up with a neat little bow. But does this really happen? We are always expected to be working, trying, and creating new things. But for some reason then the conference only expects a perfectly finished piece of research. Would it not be more helpful to be open and honest that we have unfinished questions in our research? If we are there to get feedback primarily, this could look like the finishing slide being the presenter having a list of unfinished questions for discussion with the audience. We come to these conferences to benefit from the wide range of knowledge other academics have, but the current formats don’t support this.

IFTR went some way to mitigating this problem. I enjoyed their three-pronged system, which consisted of the regular general panels (20 mins + 10 mins Q&A) but also working groups (5 min presentations + 25 mins Q&A) and the new scholars forum exclusively for new academics (10 min presentations + 20 mins Q&A). This meant there were many options to present, but it isn’t perfect: for example, if you want more discussion time and are not a new scholar, your only option is a working group, which may not have a topic that suits your research. Or maybe you want to give a longer talk, but want to approach the Q&A as a discussion rather than just answering questions about your research.

For my next conference in July, I’m going to try a few of these ideas, and not feel the pressure to present a piece of perfect research, but be honest and open about what I want feedback and suggestions on. This is, after all, the reason I’m presenting — to learn from the other amazing academics in the room.