Join the Crew
Volunteer
at FORM
Forty people run this conference from the inside. Two shifts buys you the whole three days.
- Anyone who can be in Berlin for all three days
- Students and early career designers first
- No conference experience, we train you on the day
- Reliable at 08:00, which is most of the job
- Conversational English, German is a bonus
- Two shifts of four hours, picked from the July rota
The Roles
Six ways
to be useful
Pick two shifts from any of these. Give us a first and a second choice and we build the rota around you.
Registration desk
- Badges, bags and the first question everyone asks
- Shifts at 08:00 and 13:00 in the Hall 1 foyer
- You meet every single person who walks in
Stage crew
- Microphone runs, timing cards and stage changeovers
- Shifts follow the session grid on all three stages
- The best seat in the hall, every session you work
Speaker liaison
- Meet speakers, walk them up and keep them to time
- Shifts of four hours in the green room in Hall 2
- Twenty minutes with someone whose work you know
Wayfinding
- Standing where the signage is not enough, which is always somewhere
- Shifts at the hall junctions and the U2 exit
- You learn the building better than its architects
Workshop hosts
- Seating the reserved list and keeping the room to time
- Shifts follow the workshop grid in Hall 3
- A free seat in the workshop you host
Media crew
- Shooting stills and clips for the FORM channels
- Shifts across the keynotes and both receptions
- Your credit on everything we publish
The Deal
What you
get back
Volunteering is unpaid and everything below comes with it. We cannot cover travel or a bed, but we will introduce you to the crew who are sharing rooms.
Apply to VolunteerFull Pass
Meals On Shift
Crew Kit
Crew Dinner
A Reference
Applications
How to
apply
Four steps, and the whole thing takes ten minutes. Applications are read in the order they arrive.
Apply to VolunteerThe timeline
- March: applications open, first come first served
- 5 June: applications close, or the forty places fill
- Late June: we confirm your place and your two shifts
- July: the rota is published and shifts can be swapped
What to tell us
- Your first and second choice of role
- Which of the three days you can be in Berlin
- Any event you have worked before, if you have
- Anything we should know to make the shift work for you
No. Half the crew studies design and half does not. The job needs somebody who turns up at 08:00, stays calm when a room fills faster than expected, and asks rather than guesses.
You give us a first and a second choice of role and the days you can be in Berlin, and we build the rota around that in July. Once it is published you can swap with another volunteer as often as you both like.
Whatever you want. Volunteers hold a full pass, so the other sixteen hours are yours: every talk, every workshop with a free seat, the opening reception and the closing party.
No. We cannot fund travel or accommodation, but volunteers get first refusal on the partner hotel rate and we introduce everyone who is looking to share a room in the week the rota goes out.
You need to be 18 by the first day of the conference. There is no upper limit, and the crew has ranged from first year students to people who have run studios for thirty years.