Powered by community: we are going to 33C3 after all, are you joining us?

[alberto]

A few weeks ago we failed to secure tickets for 33C3. In a way this is good news: Congress is a great event, and it deserves its success. At the same time, though, we were a little sad. We had been looking forward to getting together at Congress. We have run Edgeryders assemblies at 31C3 and 32C3, and were hoping to make this into a small tradition.

Turns out others, like us, had been unable to get tickets. Talking to some of them, we had an idea: rent our own venue in Hamburg and run a satellite event. Community magic kicked in, and it is beautiful to behold. Generous people chipped in with manpower, website development, and the ever-precious coordination skills. Orga likes the idea, and donated the logo. We secured a great venue: the Radisson Blu, in the same complex as the Congress Center Hamburg. We’ll be literally looking out our window at the iconic rocket.

As  of a few hours ago, a crowdfunding launched. The idea is to have a kind of “modular” event, by renting more meeting rooms in the Radisson as more people join. The first one accommodates 22 people; as I write this we are already close to covering its costs. We can then continue to accept more people up to about 500.

If you are reading this, whoever you are, you are an edgeryder. If you know Congress, you already love it. If you don’t know it, take our word for it – you soon will. So join us for alt33c3, 27-30 December 2016. Instructions here.

Thanks to @Nadia for generously making it happen!

[nadia]

It’s controversial: Some people like it, far from all

So someone involved in organising the #33c3 event donated the logo. But It’s not quite so clearcut. There has been a lot of criticism too.  Some justified. Some more to do with gatekeeping.

I think what a lot of people are missing is context. Possible also an understanding of emergence in open collaboration.

We were contacted by someone who didn’t have a ticket to the congress, and had already bought their travel etc. They made a point that this would be true for many others. And that there were many people in general who were left out. So they asked if we could support them in organising this. I said we could offer Edgeryders as an admin vehicle (because noone would rent venue to individual), provided they drive it.

Fast forwards a few weeks later and you have abunch of people putting something together using a mix of tools that different people have set up, and then others have improved or replaces with other tools. People were looking at venues to hold 2000!!! people. And I’ve been gently cathearding and helping ensure this things stays grounded