I was lucky enough to bag a place at the first ever ‘Harvest Twestival’ in London last Thursday. There are many, many posts bounding about the blogosphere praising the team for organising such a successful event that I’m in of full support of, but here’s my two cents. I thought Mike Butcher made a good point by showing the comparison between the ‘two sides’ of the London tech scene – Twestival vs. Investor Allstars. But for me, it’s these type of informal social sessions that really prove how influential London is at the moment.
A little bit of background first; the ‘tweet-up with a social conscience’ donated all food and profits from the night to The Connection at St Martin-in-the-Fields (a community centre based in Trafalgar Square that works with homeless people in Central London). With almost 200 Tweeps registered to attend, the event was packed by the time I arrived just before 7.00pm. And that’s saying something, even for a Thursday (thinking-man’s night out) in town.
One of the first points to be made was the split of attendees – just the right mixture of the UK’s finest Twitterers with everyday users just showing in an interest in expanding their network. I actually had a conversation with Kai Fish from the Mystery Jets without even realising who he was (my bad). But that’s got to be the way to meet people – for the person, not the name. It’s that very open attitude that makes this industry so successful, unlike events in other big tech cities (not naming any names), there’s very little pretence.
I met some truly interesting people that night, including a number of guys from overseas who’d made this event one of the main reasons for visiting the UK on a ‘networking tour’. Namely three fantastic Swedish guys with an interest in developing the UK market (Anders Fredriksson, Måns Adler and Peter Sandberg).
It’s my feeling that this is because the Twestival was another one of the events on the UK tech calendar organised to meet a straightforward, open objective - to simply expand your network and do a bit of good at the same time, instead of being a party for party’s sake. It’s most definitely earned a place with tech’s best, joining the likes of Tuttle, Mobile Geeks of London, Girl Geek dinners and OpenCoffee/CreativeCoffee. Even the official Twitter blog picked it up.
Sad that I missed @ihatemornings performing his YouTube hit 'You're No One If You're Not On Twitter', as well as the fact that I didn’t get to seek out @haikuriousgeorg. He WAS there…apparently.
Keep an eye out for Christian Payne (aka Documentally) and his video coverage of the event, lovingly filmed by Matt at various points throughout the night (toilet corridors etc). Word on the street is that there’s a Christmas (Twistmas?) event planned, bring it on I say.
Imaga via Benjamin Ellis