Ticket Lottery – Now Open!
As previously mentioned, we’re giving out the second wave of tickets for BarCampLondon 7 through a lottery. It is now live, and you’ll be able to enter it between midday on 30th September and midday on 3rd October.
Sorry, the lottery has now closed
Winners will be contacted over the weekend. If you are lucky enough to secure a ticket in the lottery, please confirm your attendance ASAP.
Our 3rd Sponsor — TechSmith
Today, we’re pleased to reveal TechSmith as the third sponsor for BarCamp London 7.
TechSmith is the name behind Camtasia Studio and SnagIt, two of the most popular screencasting/capture applications for Windows, and most recently Camtasia for Mac.
As well as sponsoring the BarCamp, they’ve also kindly offered to hand out some free licenses over the weekend.
We like to thank TechSmith for their generous support of BarCamp London 7, in addition to their support for other local events, such as the recent Tomorrow’s Web conference.
Second Sponsor – Nestoria
We are pleased to announce our second sponsor for BarCamp London 7, Nestoria.
Nestoria is a search engine which makes it easy to find property in the UK. They’re a small group of London-based entrepreneurs with strong backgrounds in European internet search, who are privately funded.
They actively support open source software, and have tools for both webmasters and developers, including an open API.
One of their latest websites is Where Can I Live, which is a project of their experimental platform, Lokku Labs. You can follow them on Twitter @nestoria
IBM – Our First Sponsor
IBM® is a household name, and needs no introduction. Their clients include many different kinds of enterprises, from sole proprietorships to the world’s largest organisations, governments and companies representing every major industry sector.
We are delighted that they have offered to host BarCampLondon 7 at their central London offices. It’s a superb location in the heart of the city, with stunning views across the Thames. We are sure it will be a really cool place to hold a BarCamp! So a big thank you to all at IBM UK who have made this possible.
The IBM logo is a registered trademark of IBM Corp. and is used under license.
Looking Back: BarCamp Hide & Seek
On Saturday, we gave out the first round of BarCamp London 7 tickets via a Twitter-based “Hide & Seek” game. We had 20 tickets with our team in central London and 5 tickets in Richmond, so CharityHack attendees didn’t miss out!
Richmond
Kevin and Leeky were in Richmond, with a huge BarCamp banner. They found themselves a nice spot on Richmond Green, and posted their geolocation. The 5 tickets went quite fast, with one ticket going to someone who hadn’t even heard of BarCamp before and got convinced on the spot!
Central London
Meanwhile, in central London we decided to take a bit more of a revolutionary approach and set up camp in front of Charles Darwin’s home. Our first hint was thus: “a natural selection for a Victorian gentleman to live in (tube: Goodge St)“, followed by twitpics and more specific tweets, finally tweeting our geo-coordinates as well.
In total we only managed to give away 6 out of the 20 tickets in central London. We were expecting a bit more participation given the enormous demand for tickets when they’re available online. Our idea behind giving out the first batch as part of a Hide & Seek was to benefit those who are willing to actually put some effort into getting a ticket. We achieved this and had great fun, so thanks to everyone who took the trouble to travel to London to see us.
The remaining tickets from the first round will be rolled into the lottery that will be held next week. Stay tuned for more information.
More on the Ticket Lottery
New BarCamp Attendees
To keep things fresh, we are trying something slightly different in the second phase of ticket giveaway. Instead of having separate tickets for first-time attendees, everyone enters the same lottery – but if you are a first-time attendee at BarCamp, you have a 50% higher chance of getting a ticket than a returnee. And if you don’t get a ticket during the lottery, don’t worry, there will still be an opportunity to get a ticket later.
Whilst we are not specifically giving tickets to Young Geeks, Girl Geeks, BCS members etc, we would be really pleased if these organisations would promote the opportunity to apply for a First Timer Ticket amongst their members (and of course, to those who have attended before).
How the Lottery Works
Between midday on the 30th September and midday on Saturday 3rd October we will provide an online form to fill in, for you to enter the ticket lottery. We would like you to complete as much information as possible here, as if you do get a ticket, it will really help us tailor the event to your specific needs (dietary requirements etc.) and save time later. There will be a box to check if you are a first-time BarCamp applicant.
Regular BarCamp attendees will, of course, have the opportunity to apply for tickets via the lottery too – just please make sure you don’t check the first-timer box – we will find out!! 
After the closing date, names will be drawn from the list of applicants and we will be in touch with the winners to confirm their attendance. If you receive an email from us saying you have a ticket, PLEASE reply ASAP letting us know you can come along. Otherwise, we will re-allocate your ticket to someone else on the list. We will be giving away at least 60 tickets in the lottery round.
But I Like the Ticket Rush…
The remaining tickets will also be released in wave 3, (date TBA) in the “old” way – you can visit the Eventbrite booking page at a specific date and time, and scramble for tickets along with anyone else who still does not have a place.
BarCamp London 7 – Ticket Round 1
What will happen
As we said yesterday, we’re going to shake things up a bit with the ticket distribution. For this first round of tickets, we’re trying out something new: this Saturday (19th) we are going to release 25 tickets through a fun game of Hide and Seek in central London. Just be in the Tottenham Court Road/Soho/Holborn area at 4pm and bring some way of keeping track of our Twitter stream. After we’ve given out all tickets, we’ll go grab a bite to eat.
Don’t worry if you’re in Richmond for CharityHack, as you will also have a chance to get tickets without taking too much time out from being socially responsible charity hackers . Just be sure to keep an eye on Twitter too!
But I’m already busy this Saturday!
If you can’t make it to central London this weekend, you’ll have another opportunity to get a ticket through a lottery system soon after. You’ll be able to put your name in for the lottery from midday on the 30th September and midday on Saturday the 3rd of October. After that, we’ll randomly select attendees. If you are one of the lucky ones, you’ll be contacted by e-mail later that day. Please respond as soon as possible to guarantee your ticket.
Is that it?
Keep an eye out on the blog, Twitter stream and in your e-mail for other opportunities to get hold of BarCamp tickets.
How will the Hide & Seek work?
On Saturday we will be posting clues on Twitter as to where you can find us, so getting a ticket is really simple. Just come and talk to us and we’ll note down your email address and Twitter username. We will then send you a confirmation mail in the following week. We’ll all be wearing BarCamp t-shirts from past BarCamps so you know who to talk to. If you find someone else in the area wearing a BarCamp t-shirt that is not us, bring them along. Chances are they’ll want to come too!
So don’t make any plans for Saturday, keep an eye on Twitter and come get your ticket. We’re giving out 20 tickets in Central London and another 5 in Richmond. See you there!
BarCampLondon7 is Official!
We are pleased to formally announce the location of the seventh BarCamp London. Thanks to the hard work of several members of our team, we have secured IBM’s Central London building on the Southbank, located a short distance from the National Theatre and Waterloo Bridge.
Image by rashdash
When?
BarCamp London 7 will take place on the 24th and 25th October 2009. So mark your calendars and join us for a weekend of presentations, networking and fun!
Tickets!
You may remember the high demand that we saw with the last BarCamp in March, with the first batch of tickets selling out in three seconds flat. To try and make things a little fairer, we are trying something different this time around. Tomorrow we’ll announce on this blog some of the details of our ticket rounds and the various ways of how you can get a ticket.
Sponsoring
We’re currently still looking for sponsors, so if you or anybody you may know is interested, feel free to contact us (mseckington@gmail.com or 07521294391). Check out the full sponsorship brief here.
Save the Date!!
BarCamp London 7 will take place on the weekend of October 24th/25th 2009. More details will follow over the next 2 weeks!
