A catalyst for the future: Mumbrella360 in 2026

In 2012, I helped curate an event that was named Event of the Year at the Australian Event Awards. That year, Mumbrella360 was the beating heart of a media and marketing industry just beginning to grapple with digital disruption and platform shifts.

Then, technology brought us together. We screened Twitterstreams live and built a gamified mobile app to encourage people to connect online.

When I returned to curating events in late 2022, everything had changed. 

Now, technology disconnects us. Audiences are fundamentally different. The shift isn’t only technological, but cultural and emotional.

Back in 2012: Tourism Australia’s Nick Baker takes the stage at Mumbrella360

We are overwhelmed by zettabytes of content, and our ability to find signal amidst the noise is increasingly challenged. Algorithmically influenced, our shared sense-making has become more fragmented. Overlay the impact of AI, and meaning itself becomes harder to grasp. We’re still processing the unravelling of the pandemic, the impact of live-streamed genocide and global instability.

Coming back to Mumbrellaland has meant rethinking what events need to be, from the moments that matter to far beyond the stage.

Audiences want more: meaning, connection, participation – and they deserve it. Choosing to spend time, money, and energy with us is a decision we must respect and reward.

If you’ve attended Humain, Unlock, or Remade, you’ll know one thing sets us apart: a genuine sense of community.

My personal KPI is seeing people I’ve brought together go on to create extraordinary work. That’s creative effectiveness, live. 

Rapturous crowds at Mumbrella 2025

Everything I’ve learned now informs a set of operating principles for how we do events. Bringing these ideas to life at Mumbrella360, in collaboration with the creative industries, is an absolute privilege.

We don’t do business as usual.
It’s easy to default to safe formats and familiar faces, but what the industry needs now is not another recap of what’s already happened. It needs a container for what’s emerging: the tensions, questions, provocations, and possibilities as we face up to the greatest upheaval in our history.
Mumbrella360 2026 is built on a different operating system.

Build for belonging
I’ve borrowed a lot from holding women’s circles, especially the idea of agreements for shared spaces. These frameworks invite people to show up with openness and generosity, creating an atmosphere where it feels safe to be vulnerable, curious, or bold. Intentional experience design lays the foundation for deeper dialogue. 
Marketing and media have a role to play in forging the future. To do that, we need to come together as an industry, to turn and face the strange with shared purpose.

No coin-operated content
We love our commercial partners; without them, we wouldn’t be in business. That said, our focus is on sponsored content that creates value for the audience. Audiences, especially ones as savvy and pitch-aware as ours can tell when content is polished but hollow. We are in the business of creativity, and that should play out in every facet of our events. 
Don’t tell us you’re funny; make us laugh.

Participants, not passengers
We’ll be announcing a raft of exceptional keynote speakers, but m360 will also walk the talk of a phrase that’s often claimed and rarely delivered: good ideas come from anywhere.
You don’t need to be the highest-paid person in the room to take the spotlight.
We want to hear from anyone with a great pitch, a brilliant insight, or an original idea – and a desire to create change.
Sessions will be designed for greater participation. A leader in every chair.
M360 is for the whole industry, and inclusion by design is key. We want to reflect the full spectrum of our talent, to make our diversity visible and celebrated.
To complement the always valuable speed networking, we’re introducing speed reverse mentorship between junior talent and industry leaders.

You had to be there
Live moments are rare, unrepeatable, and precious. Every detail should reinforce the feeling that this moment won’t happen again.
We’re designing for a culture stretched thin. Audiences are discerning about where they spend their time and energy. It’s our responsibility to make being in the room feel worth it. This might play out in sensory-led session design or unexpected formats. 
We’re no longer in an attention economy; we’re in an energy economy.

Live events must be conscious of cognitive load. It’s not about volume. You can’t just stack content back to back; people need space to process, connect, and breathe. We’ll include content that emerges during the event. It’s risky, but the potential rewards are immense. That also means original content. Please don’t pitch us something you’ve presented elsewhere.

Ecosystems not events.
We’re aiming to build something that outlives the day. We invite you to think about community and contribution – vibecoding hackathons to solve real-world problems, ways we can give back, and the immense creative firepower of 1500 industry heavyweights coming together.

Dissent by design
Real connection isn’t about comfort; it’s about safety, including the safety to disagree.
When people feel okay to challenge each other – respectfully, thoughtfully – that’s where insight emerges.
Too often, events are designed to smooth over differences. But friction is generative, if we make room for it.

Allison Langdon at Mumbrella360 2024

These ideas might sound warm and fuzzy, but they’re deeply pragmatic. When people feel safe, they take risks. When they’re engaged, they remember. When they feel part of something, they come back.

Mumbrella360 has always had a role to play in shaping this industry. 
As we bring Mumbrella360 back for its fifteenth year in 2026, we’re not interested in nostalgia. We’re interested in ignition.

The theme for Mumbrella360 2026 is Catalyst.

The media and marketing industry doesn’t need another passive parade of panels. It needs heat. Friction. Momentum.
Change. 

Catalyst creates:

• Connection that cuts across silos and enables hard conversations
• Culture shaped by the people in the room
• Community built on both affinity and disagreement
• Creativity with edge, and commercial power
• Confrontation – because consensus breeds complacency

We’re not designing for audiences who are just happy to be out of the office. We are designing for audiences who will call bullshit if you waste their time.

We don’t just want to run the best event of the year. We want to spark something that lives far beyond it.

And to do that, we’re inviting you to join us. 

We’re calling in the brave ones. The leaders. The emerging voices. The ones who know the real work begins when the script ends.

The stage is yours. How will you use it to create change?

The call for session submissions is now open.  Let’s dance.