Ignite Fort Collins #1

I'm so bummed that tickets are gone by 8:00 am on the 14th! Just got the email. :*(
Hope if this goes well you will make it a bigger venue.

Yeah, bummed here as well. As Paula said, this definitely needs to be in a bigger venue. What's the biggest cheap space in Ft. Collins?

My kind of event! Was out of town for this one regardless but definitely want in on the next. Get me on that list!

I have a seat that I am not going to use tonight--who wants it? First one to post a way to get in touch with them...it's yours. :) Really sad to miss it, but I am feeling extremely ill.

Lots of fun, very informative, thanks!
See you next time.

Outstanding event. Excellent details on so many fronts. The sponsors, speakers, and audience were all taken care of very well. I can't wait to see the videos.

1. Look at the systems that @ignitephoenix and @igniteportland are using for ticket reservations. These each have a window where reservations expire 15 minutes before the show starts and folks from a waiting line can get admission. Portland has done this for several ignites; PHX will do it for the first time in two weeks. See if a system like that is feasible for you to maximize attendance for the next event.

2. As someone who has presented a couple of times, I vastly prefer having the organizing committee choose the presentations. If you want public participation, I'd suggest a meetup right after submissions are closed where input from the meetup had the same weighting as one vote of a member of the selecting committee.

PHX and PDX have an automated system for submitting presentations. @brady has a Google Docs document that he has people fill out to submit a proposal for the numerous Ignites that he organizes.

I don't like any of the crowdsourcing applications for selecting presentations. Those systems penalize late submitters and reward people who have a large online audience (e.g., twitter followers, etc). The crowdsourcing apps could maybe serve to promote attendance for the event, but you have no problem with ticket demand.

3. Superb service at the Drake Center. Several of the service staff even stepped in to see the presentations. Wow. Having a second projector on the back wall helped the presenters stay connected to the audience (and not looking over their shoulder). I wish that all the Ignites did that.

4. I couldn't get a WiFi connection during the show. If the facility doesn't have one, maybe you could have someone with G3 access run a tether application on their computer.

5. It's tough to present for any event with >100 people and Ignites have their special challenges. Your team bent over backwards to have the evening go smoothly for presenters. Anyone thinking about presenting should note how well these folks take care of you -- you have NO EXCUSE for not getting your ... in gear and proposing to present at your next Ignite.

Thank you.

--phil

One suggestion on slides: require that presenters use your templates for the first and last slides, but let them use anything for the other 18 slides.

That lets presenters have bigger images. It's also easier to create images, since the slide boundary is an implicit clipping area.

Congrats to everyone who put in all the time required to pull off such a successful event. I have to say, the quality of speakers was excellent. Everyone was comfortable onstage, and all had real knowledge to impart.

My specific suggestions (coming through the lens of someone who has only attended Ignite in Boulder, and nowhere else):

1) Having the slides projected on the back wall was FANTASTIC as a speaker. I didn't have to look back for the slide changes.

2) You had much more consistency in terms of content and speakers than we've had in Boulder.

3) Despite that, there were too many presentations related to marketing (a problem Boulder suffers from as well)

4) Although you probably don't want Ignite to become a "comedy hour", I did come away thinking that I wished it were a little more "fun" (some of that was because I didn't really know anyone)

5) It's great that you guys are so organized, but as a speaker, I don't need to receive nearly as many planning and organizational emails about the event as I did. :-)

6) I think the classical music (although objectively great) did not fit the mood I was expecting...and then we led off with a (relatively) humorous presentation.

7) Although I understand that you didn't want to encourage heckling etc, the environment was almost too supportive. I didn't want it to feel like a public speaking event where everyone gets a blue ribbon just for participating. It really wasn't too bad, just leaning in that direction, if you understand what I mean.

8) The diversity of the presentations was fantastic - I came away thinking about cohabitation and building my own solar heater. Great to have things like that which could radically change the way people think about life.

9) Again, I can't say enough about how well planned everything was and how great the speakers were, along with the diversity of subjects.

I look forward to the next!

Rather than a shotgun mike on the video camera, record the audio directly off of the venue's A/V system. If it's not too hard, running the audio through the levelator would be a good touch.