BarCampLA turned out to be a roaring success – mad props to Kareem, Ian, Jason and Chris for putting it all together.
In fact, it’s still going on as I speak type – unfortunately I could only attend the first day as I am flying down to San Diego today (Sunday).
The event was located in the premises of LittleRadio, a small radio-station-cum-start-up. They’re based in a really cool warehouse in the downtown warehouse disctrict of LA. Although the locale was not amazingly attractive (or safe, probably) the inside of the building was great. Really high ceilings, exposed wood beams, mezzanine level, etc, etc.
About 60 people turned up, which beat expectations of 30-40. Everyone was asked to introduce themselves and say a little about why there were at the event. There was a fair representation of Yahoo! and Fox Interactive Media, who are the two big internet employers in town, but also lots of independents, small companies, etc.
A lot of people commented that they hadn’t realised there was such a vibrant ‘geek scene’ in LA, but were pleased that people had turned out to prove that theory wrong.
The event stared at 4pm, although I turned up early to help get things together. I probably left around 10:30pm as Terri from Fox offered to give me a lift back to my hotel, with a short tour of LA on the way (Thanks for that, it was very kind of you!).