What to Expect at BarCampLondon6

by Emma on March 26, 2009 at 3:31 pm

Sessions 30 Minutes Long. 7 Session Rooms. Grid Opens ~ 11:45. Party from 9:00 PM. Restricted Access 10:00 PM - 08:00 AM. Stay Overnight. Day 2. Breakfast from 9:00 AM.

About BarCamp
BarCamp is a participatory unconference, so you guys, the attendees are going to be making the event as great as it can be. The idea is that everyone who comes takes part in some way, be that running a session (it’s not as scary as you might think), taking photos, blogging, tweeting, etc. For those of you who want to run a session, this is what you need to know:

Session Slots
Session slots are 30 minutes long, and have at least 15 minutes between them. We have 7 rooms for sessions, and plenty of break out spaces for continuing the conversation in the corridor afterwards. The seven rooms range in size and style. Some are conference style rooms with large 60″ displays for 20 - 40 people, others are conversation rooms with little or no technology for 5 - 20 people. We’ll mark up which rooms are which size so you know in advance.

The Grid
Sessions are not booked or organised like an ordinary conference, instead we will open up a Grid with empty slots. One column for each room, one row for each time slot, one grid for each day. When the grid opens, at around 11:45, you will be able to claim your slot on the grid by sticking up an index card with your session title and your name on with some blue tak. Index cards, sharpies and blue tak is all provided for you in the morning so you will be ready when the grid opens.

Session Topics
You can run a session on anything you want, really, anything. Your session needn’t be technical or formal, and can be in any style you are comfortable with. We’ve had sessions on all sorts of topics in the past such as a Wine and Cheese Session and a Lifehacking Session, right through to the seriously technical Computer Vision for Hand Gesture Recognition. Take you pick! And a good tip is to head to sessions that you know less about, that way you will learn more.

Evening Entertainment
Sessions will run till around 9:00 PM, after which we will be having a party and there will be lots of treats for everyone! There will also be traditional BarCamp games such as Werewolf and Semantopoly (we can teach you at BarCamp, don’t worry), and hopefully some fantastic conversation, and quotes to be OH’d. These will all go on late into the night, and everyone is welcome to stay in the venue until the next morning. Just remember to bring a sleeping bag if you are doing this. The following morning things kick off with Breakfast at about 9:00 AM, and sessions will run till around 4:30 when it is all over and time to clear up.

Building Access
The building is closed for people entering or leaving from 10:00 PM till 08:00 AM, though if you do really need to go out, we can make an exception, but don’t plan on arriving at 4:00 AM and simply walking in. A member of the planning team will need to let you out and back in if you do need to leave, so simply find someone with CREW on their badge or T-Shirt and they will help you out.

Food And Drink
Remember that all food and drink is provided, though your donations are kindly accepted to help with the quantities ;)