Back from HAR2009 last night, and obviously I loved it.
HAR2009 was quite wonderful, I usually run arround helping out where I can, but this year decided to take it easy and be a ‘visitor’. I can only say it was only slightly more relaxed. I still volunteered a little and still hopped from A to B to C to D. I managed to actually build something though, an Arduino based MIDI-controller, simple but for some odd reason anoying to get it to actually work. Also got to meet and talk to a lot of familiar and unfamiliar people and had overal quite a lot of fun.
I’ve got mixed feelings about the 4 yearly event this time named HAR. It’s big and that creates a paradoxal feeling for me.
I love how it brings people together, and with that how I get to see lots of people again. I also love the atmosphere these events bring, I’m almost always sorry that it’s over. Something about such a lot of cool/like-minded/fun people in one small space. IT’s like the ‘perfect’ town/village.
There is a downside on it though. Or some actually, and it all comes down to size. It’s only a short event and I never get see and talk to everyone there, and for me that ends up usually in lots of short contacts with lots of people. Not ideal, you never get to be really talking to anyone. And if you do, you miss out on quite a lot.
Big events are also expensive like hell, both in time and money. It’s I think always worth it, but because of it, you end up with a high entrance price which font fit everyone’s budget and raising the threshold for joining.
I think events like WTH, CCC-Camp, HAR, etc have a good place, I also think it’s good that they’re not every year. That way there is space for smaller events, sometimes more specialised, ususally a lot easier to join.
Events like ETH0, EasterHegg, ICMP, Opencommunity Camp, Hackmeetings, Megabit, and many more. They often only have a few hunderd people max, but contact is closer, it’s easier to have a longer event, more intimate and higher impact. And mainly you can have more of them, making the overall experience even longer and diverser (although many people still have the problem with having to work and all that crap ;).
So I’d love to see more people organise more smaller events, and I love for people to work on CCC Camp in 2 years and build another Dutch event in 4 years. Maybe with even more people.
So see you in 4 years, 2 years or maybe in 2 months.
And also Special Thanks to:
- Organisation & active volunters: You’ve done a load, and by far the most work in getting this event pulled off.
- HARdware village for providing a great place for hacking on hardware and providing kits.
- Geraffel village for helping out with my midi project by providing tips, connectors and a synth for testing
- Arduino village for providing the arduino and help debugging.
- C-Base for a nice place with nice people and nice food :)
- Everyone for making this again another wonderful event.