Skepticamp Sydney 2011 was a triumph. I'm making a note here: huge successSkepticamp Sydney 2011 is now history and we're looking forward to Melbourne, however it's time to do some work on what went wrong and what went right.
How this event compared in numbers to previous Skepticamps is
here. We were one of the largest (unconfirmed) and had the most individual topics.
Please feel free to use the discussion tab on this page and/or make edits of your own - Jason
What did we do right
The venue was excellent. Centrally-located, easy access, spacious enough and with good multimedia
Food seemed to be very well received
Speakers and participants were engaged, switched on and very much deserving of applause
Twitter announcements of speaker/room schedule was very helpful
Provision of power/charging for mobile devices was excellent
What did we do wrong
Wireless access was problematic. We could have provided wifi logins with nametags, which would have made things easier
(note from @skepticampau: future events will organise wifi at a much earlier stage)The scheduling board was very ad-hoc and could have used a bit more foresight
(note from @skepticampau: is there a tech solution to this? Or stay lo-fi with post-its and paper?)Perhaps key / prominent presenters could be pre-scheduled to allow attendees to plan which presentations they wish to attend in advance. The Twitter announcements worked well, but not all attendees were Twitter users.
(note from @skepticampau: The Rules of Skepticamp specifically call this out as a "don't do")Audio recording wasn't organised properly
(note from @skepticampau: will vary per-venue but discussion with A/V crew should start earlier)Insufficient budget and a short lead-time meant we had no merchandise (t-shirts etc) at the venue
(note from @skepticampau: Action item: source a local distributor)Closing session could have used more of a format for giveaways
(note from @skepticampau: ran out of time for scripting - again, lead-time. Each compere to have this as action item)Tea / Coffee facilities were inadequate and not close to a water tap to allow re-filling kettle. Perhaps an urn would be more appropriate if one can be borrowed / obtained.
(urns, good idea. Or a large water source)Blog reactions
Australian SkepticsToken SkepticRatbagsDotComRuth EllisonLiz OttosonJason BrownIan Woolf
Photography
Julian Orbach's Skepticamp FlickrsetRuth Ellison's FlickrsetShare_s's FlickrsetNewtown Graffiti's FlickrsetBob Lloyd's FlickrsetBayani Mills has some shotsOther coverage / Miscellaneous Debris
We outranked Justin Bieber in the
Charles Moses Sydney Daily (Lulz)
Dan Summer's Slide Deck for the talk "The Gospel According To George Lucas" is
hereA couple of mentions on
FuckYeahSkeptic for May 3rd
Bayani Mills recorded the "Skepticamp in Theory and Practice" Session and placed it on YouTube
here. The presenter moves around a lot so is hardly ever in frame. Yes, that was me.