Ibiza, Agency Hackers, and why I'm looking forward to being a delegate this year

Last year, The Agency Adventure turned up to Agency Hackers Ibiza in full force. This year is a lower-key affair. No advisors on call. No Vision Session. No postcards from Ibiza (if you know you know!)

This year I'm going as a delegate, with a notebook and an open diary. And honestly? I think it might be the most useful trip I make all year.

Here's why......

Running a business is not the same as working on it

Every agency founder knows the line. Work on the business, not in it. We nod along. We put it on a slide. And then Monday morning arrives and we're back in the inbox.

The reality is, I'm no different. TAA has had a busy year. New Guides, new programmes, new clients, a lot of moving parts. All good problems. But good problems still eat your thinking time.

So this year, Ibiza is my checkpoint. A few days away from the day-to-day to ask the questions I ask our clients every week:

• What actually worked this year, and what just felt busy?

• Where does TAA need to be in three years, and what does the next twelve months need to look like to get there?

• What do I need to stop doing, so the team and I can do the important things well?

Simple, not easy. But you can't answer those questions between calls. You need space, a change of scene, and a few people around you who think differently to you. Ibiza gives me all three.

People first. Always.

When you sponsor an event, you spend most of it behind a stand or on a stage. You meet a lot of people for about ninety seconds each. It's fun, but it's shallow.

This year I get to do the opposite.

I want to get to know new founders properly. Not the elevator pitch version, the real version. What they're building, what they're wrestling with, what they're proud of. And I want to deepen the relationships I already have. Some of the people I value most in this industry are people I've only ever half-finished a conversation with at events like this. Time to finish a few.

That's not networking in the business-card sense. It's just talking to good people without a clock running. That's where the best ideas, partnerships and friendships come from.

Research, in the truest sense

This is the bit I'm most excited about.

The agency world is going through real turmoil right now. Clients are changing how they buy. AI is changing what they're willing to pay for. Margins are tight, pipelines are lumpy, and a lot of founders are quietly asking themselves whether the model they built five years ago still works.

At TAA we spend a lot of time helping founders navigate that. But the best way to help is to understand it from the ground up, not from a report or a slide. So I'm going to Ibiza to listen. Properly.

I want to know:

• What's genuinely hard for agency founders today, not what the headlines say is hard?

• What are people doing that's actually working?

• Where are the gaps between what founders need and what the industry is offering them?

Every conversation is a data point. By the end of the week, I'll have a much clearer picture of what the next year needs to look like for the founders we work with, and for TAA.

What I'll bring back

I'll write up what I hear. Not a polished report, more an honest read on the state of independent agencies going into 2027. If you can't make it to Ibiza, that's the next best thing, and I'll share it here and on LinkedIn.