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A Week After the AWS Outage: What It Taught Us About Flexibility and Resilience

It’s been just over a week since the AWS outage that left much of the digital world in the dark. Major companies like Hootsuite, Amazon,Netflix, and Canva were all affected, and we felt the impact too.

When our website suddenly went offline, it wasn’t idealtiming. Like most event companies, our website is the heartbeat of what we do.It’s where attendees register, explore events, and stay informed. In moments like that, you realise just how much you depend on systems that feel unshakable until they aren’t.

This experience wasn’t just frustrating. It was eye-opening.It became a real-world test of how resilient and flexible our team truly is.

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When Tech Fails, People Step Up

When our website went down, we didn’t wait around hoping it would fix itself. Within minutes, our team was in full problem-solving mode.

We set out manual registration forms, which could then beinput once the site came back online, ensuring no attendee or booking wasmissed.

We kept the communication flowing. Updates went out through email, SMS, and social media to make sure attendees knew exactly what was happening.

It wasn’t just our systems feeling the strain. Many of the tools we rely on every day were also affected. With Hootsuite, HMRC, Apollo,and Canva experiencing downtime, different departments across the business had to think fast and adapt.

Our Marketing team couldn’t use Hootsuite to schedule content or Canva to design assets. They manually posted across platforms and switched to alternative design tools to keep communications running.

Meanwhile, our Finance team faced their own hurdles. Unable to access HMRC to check tax codes or verify payments, they paused certain tasks and found new ways to stay on top of key information until systems came back online.

The outage may have started in the cloud, but it reminded us that real resilience happens on the ground, in how your people respond.

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The Lesson: Don’t Put All Your Eggs in One Basket

Outages like this are humbling. No matter how advanced systems get, there is always a chance something can go wrong. Resilience isn’t just about having strong infrastructure. It’s about having strong teams,flexible processes, and a mindset that can bend without breaking.

We’re using this experience to strengthen our contingency planning even further. We are exploring alternative hosting options, refiningour communication strategy, and making sure if something like this happens again, we are ready to handle it smoothly.

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Looking Back

It’s been a week since the outage, and while everything is back up and running, the message still stands. Resilience shouldn't just start with your cloud; it needs to be built within your people.

Our website went dark for a short while, and several platforms we depend on went down too. But our events didn’t stop. Our team proved that adaptability isn’t just a buzzword. It’s what keeps everything moving when the unexpected happens.

In the events world, flexibility isn’t optional. It’s part of who we are.

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Join the Conversation

Resilience is one of the top topics at our CISO Inspired Summit UK this November. If you’d like to learn more about how to prevent this kind of disruption in your company and pick up quick tips on how to adapt when the unexpected happens, join us at the Summit.

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