Speaker Information & Resources
WHAT THE SUMMIT IS ALL ABOUT
Hi there! We’re so excited to team up with you to create an event that’s going to be absolutely incredible.
The Yellowstone Summit is a virtual event hosted by A Yellowstone Life in partnership with Yellowstone Forever. This 4-day online event runs from February 20-23, 2025 and will help Yellowstone lovers get the latest updates and reports from park experts, learn new skills and insights to make their in-park experiences richer, get tips for planning their trip, and connect with fellow park enthusiasts.
The Summit features live and pre-recorded sessions with around 30 Yellowstone speakers—researchers, historians, naturalist guides, tribal representatives, photographers, authors, conservationists, filmmakers, and artists who bring not only resource information, but arts, culture, conservation, indigenous perspectives, new ways to experience the park in a deeper way.
Knowing that many people do not have the time, means, or insider access to connect with park experts deeper level, our vision in creating the summit is to bring an unparalleled level of world-class Yellowstone knowledge and connection to a virtual format that is affordable, and available to anyone, anywhere, which builds community, and helps attendees not only deepen their understanding of the park but engage in meaningful conversations with speakers and with each other about the past, present, and future of Yellowstone.
This will be our 4th annual event, and participants and speakers absolutely love it!
This event is presented through our mission-focused online education company A Yellowstone Life in partnership with Yellowstone Forever and is community oriented by design. We maintain a strong commitment to benefit everyone involved; speakers, sponsors, attendees, and of course, Yellowstone National Park.
General admission passes are only $12. Twenty percent from every general pass will be donated to education in Yellowstone National Park through the Yellowstone Forever Institute. VIP Pass holders (for an additional fee) will be able to participate in bonus lessons, live Q&A sessions, and exclusive giveaways.
The Yellowstone Summit is run as a nonprofit event; the modest registration fees are what makes it possible to cover the direct expenses for the summit. Proceeds after expenses (in addition to 20% of General Pass sales) are donated to the Yellowstone Forever Institute in support of park education.
The coolest part about a summit is that everyone benefits - attendees learn new knowledge and skills, and speakers get access to an ideal audience ready to learn from them, and support their funding projects, products, and services.
Speakers help promote the event by sharing on social media and to their email lists. In this way, we partner together to bring more attendees to the event and more benefits for everyone. The more people we can engage and inspire, the more everyone–including the park–benefits.
On this page, you’ll find all kinds of resources meant to make your life as a speaker as easy as possible and answer any questions you might have. If you run into a question we didn’t answer, email Jenny and the summit team at hello@yellowstonesummit.com.
There are lots of benefits to speaking at the Yellowstone Summit.
As a speaker you’ll get 1 free ticket to the summit VIP Pass ($97 value), and access to the summit Facebook group.
- Unless you’re participating in a live Q&A, your presentation will be pre-recorded to make summit week stress-free. We just ask that you be available once or twice during the event to participate in the Facebook group if possible.
- You’re welcome to reuse your presentation afterwards for anything you’d like.
- You will be able to include a link to your funding project, special offer, product, or service next to your presentation video during the summit. This is a great way to grow your supporters, audience, or customers, if that is something you’d like to do.
- If you have no funding project, product, or service to promote, we can discuss a direct honorarium.
- If you choose, you can earn a 50% commission from any attendee who signs up for the VIP pass through your unique registration link (we’ll give this to you). All Access Passes are $47-97.
- With all of the great speakers we’ve got lined up, there will be a lot of new eyes on what you have to teach!
How it will all work...
The event will run from February 20-23, 2025 with 5-7 pre-recorded presentations running each day, along with a handful of live Q&A sessions. These presentations will include 15-45 minutes of content (30 minutes or less is ideal).
Along with the presentations, there will be a Facebook group for attendees to hang out in and ask additional questions. While most of the presentations themselves are pre-recorded, all speakers are asked to pop in to the Facebook group to interact with attendees at some point during the event if possible.
Each day during the live event we host "Let's Talk Yellowstone" sessions where participants can interact with speakers and each other. We encourage speakers to participate in one of these sessions if possible.
Speakers who are accepted to the summit will be able to choose between providing a pre-recorded presentation (keynote or interview style), or participation in a live Q&A session, or both!
Leading up to the summit, we’ll have two weeks of promotion. If you are helping promote the summit, you’ll be provided with email swipe copy, social media swipe copy, and social media graphics to make it all easy! We'll even have a suggested posting/sending schedule for you to make promotion easy.
During the promotion phase, as the summit is running, and after the summit is complete, we’ll also be promoting the VIP Pass, which will include extended access to presentation replays, access to live Q&A sessions, exclusive giveaways, bonus lessons, and a podcast stream of the presentations. This will provide immense value to our attendees.
You’ll also have the opportunity to bring in an affiliate commission on any VIP passes your audience purchases, making the work of promoting and creating a presentation even more worthwhile. Yay!
What we'll need from you
So this all sounds great, but what kind of work does it require of you? Let’s chat about it! Our goal is to make this all as easy as humanly possible so we can all have a blast while also creating a successful event.
1. BASIC INFORMATION
The first thing we’ll need is some very basic information from you so we can finish up our registration page and Speakers page.
This information includes things like:
- Name
- Title
- Bio
- Square headshot
- Speaker and affiliate agreements
Once you give us the thumbs up that you’re in, we'll send you a link where you can upload all this information easily.
2. PRESENTATION
Next up is your presentation! This is a 15-45 minute pre-recorded presentation (30 minutes or less is ideal) that is meant to be more friendly and casual than perfect and structured. We want our attendees to learn something great, while having fun in the process.
We are accepting presentations that fit generally into the following themes:
- Yellowstone Deep Dive - updates and reports on park resources, conditions, research, etc.
- Enhance Your Experience - actionable how-to lessons on things like photography, hiking, journaling, wildlife watching, phonescoping, geyser gazing, etc.
- Plan Your Trip - advice and tips for people planning a trip to Yellowstone for the first time
- Yellowstone Inspired - readings of written work, presentations on what inspired artwork, etc.
IMPORTANT: We will not accept any presentations that reveal, encourage, or show footage of visitation to sensitive places, which may drive excessive amounts of visitor traffic to one location, which do not adhere to Leave No Trace ethics, or which promote anything that is not in line with park regulations.
This should generally be a "new" presentation (something that is not currently available to the public for free), and structured in a way that allows attendees to walk away feeling like they've really learned something.
Unless you prefer to record your own presentation, we will set a time to meet on Zoom where we will record your presentation for you.
During your presentation, you can choose from any of the following formats:
- Slides
- No slides (just your gorgeous/handsome face)
- Interview-style
- A mix of all the above
- Participation in a live Q&A panel during the festival
No matter what format you choose, you are free to use your presentation however you’d like in the future; we'll provide you with a link to your recording.
Your presentation should include new and/or actionable content, or information not commonly shared with the public.
PRESENTATION TIPS
Make your presentation your own! However, here are a few suggested points to include:
- Make sure you're in a well lit area, and have a good audio source with no background noise. If you are local to Gardiner or Mammoth, we can loan you a webcam and microphone if you'd like.
- 3-minute or less introduction (we can introduce you if you'd like)
- Topic overview
- Teaching section
- Suggestions for further learning or action
- You are welcome to talk about your funding project, program, or service at the end of this
presentation, for no more than 2 minutes. We will link to this below your recorded presentation.* - Suggest that people post questions to you in the Facebook group if you are participating there.
*ABOUT THE LINK BELOW YOUR PRESENTATION
The link below your presentation can be directly to your project, product, or service. We would
suggest linking to something that is directly related to your presentation, and which would
help attendees take the next step towards learning from, supporting, or working with you. If
you have a special offer, that will make people even more motivated to visit your link and
support you.
If building an email list is of interest, you might consider providing a free resource instead--like
a checklist, worksheet, or an online class--that helps them make use of the information you've
presented. If you do not already have a way for people to opt-in for a freebie and collect an
email address, you can submit this freebie to us and we will provide you with the emails of
folks who clicked to access that resource. Please note that this should only be used if you
know and understand email marketing privacy rules and ethical practices, and use an email
service provider that allows people to unsubscribe. If you are already familiar with email
marketing, you can simply link to your own opt-in form for your freebie.
*Note to NPS presenters: We will link to your Yellowstone Forever project funding page, where applicable
Presentations are due no later than January 10, 2024, although we highly encourage completing it before then to make planning easier on our end.
4. VIP PASS CONTRIBUTION
The VIP Pass includes benefits exclusively offered to attendees who have purchased the pass. To make it even more valuable, we’d love for each speaker to provide one resource to add, if possible. This includes things like:
- eBooks
- Workbooks
- Courses (big or small)
- Downloadable slides or notes
- Freebies
- Extra bonus class or interview
It’s totally up to you to decide whether you’d like to create something new or provide something you already have. While this isn’t required, it’s highly encouraged that you participate.
Information for these resources is due on January 10, 2024. You'll receive a questionnaire to fill out closer to that time to make passing the information to us nice and simple.
5. PROMOTION
The power of an online summit comes from a group of experts coming together for a single cause. The joint promotion that happens because of that is a huge benefit to everyone involved.
Because of that, everyone is encouraged to share on social media and to email their lists (if applicable) during the promotion period, starting on February 6.
You’ll want to share using your affiliate link (which you can set up below) so you can get in on the 50% commission that will come from any All-Access Pass sales.
You’ll find swipe copy and graphics in the Promotional Resources below.
6. LIVE PARTICIPATION
And last comes participation during the live event. Since we’ll already have done the work of creating the presentations and extra resources, we’ll be able to sit back and relax for the most part, unless you are doing a live Q&A!
All we ask is that you interact in the Facebook group a couple of times throughout the event to help attendees stay excited and engaged, if you are a Facebook user.
While you are not required to attend the events of other speakers, it’s highly encouraged! We’ll be able to get some great discussions going in the Facebook group about the topics being presented.
Affiliate Details
While summits are great for overall visibility and making new connections, a little extra income never hurts either, right?
That’s exactly why we’ve set up an affiliate program for the VIP Pass where you’ll receive a commission from all VIP sales from the traffic you refer to the event. Payouts will be made by April 15, 2024. We do not offer a commission on the general admission pass, because this is where we earn funds to donate back to the park.
The commission structure is 50% for all speakers.
The pricing structure will be:
- $47 limited time offer at registration
- $77 early bird before the summit starts
- $97 once the summit starts
You can see all the affiliate details and sign up COMING SOON.
To make it as easy as possible for you to generate extra income, we've put together promotional text and graphics for you to use (below)
Promotional Resources
Action Steps
Phew, that was a lot to cover! You’re awesome for making it this far :)
For the sake of clarity, here are your current action steps:
- Let us know you’re in or schedule a time to chat
- Provide your basic information once the link comes through
- Sign up for your affiliate account (coming soon)
- Let me know if you have any questions up to this point!
Remember to let us know if you have any questions! Email Jenny at hello@yellowstonesummit.com
Important Dates
Here’s a roundup of our key dates:
- Basic information: As soon as possible (we’ll send you an email to ask for this info)
- Presentation due: December 15, (some extensions to January 10 available).
- VIP Pass contribution information: January 20
- Promotion period: February 6-20
- Summit dates: February 20-23
- All Access Pass cart closes: March 7
- Affiliate payouts: by April 15