VideoBrains October: What Scares You?

What scares me?

My event crashing and burning into the ground. Luckily, that didn’t happen. Again, plenty of hours of work and plenty of me worrying needlessly.

If you enjoyed it, here is where I mention Patreon. I’m not trying to get rich out of this, but your pledges might help me to break even which would be fantastic.

What Went Right

All you need to turn around a meh week is to make jokes about videogames and life in general. My god, I feel better. I love #VideoBrains.

— woke bowser (@failnaut) October 21, 2014

My phone may have died and I may have missed the train, but these were far from the scariest events at #VideoBrains! Great talks by all!

— Tom Battey (@tombattey) October 21, 2014

There wasn't a single boring speaker either, they were all fantastic and interesting. Idgaf, I sound like a nerd, but whatever. #VideoBrains

— ♡ future girl ♡ (@MelissaBUSTED) October 21, 2014

Really enjoyed the #videobrains talks today especially from Helen Gould, its made me laugh and made the day a lot brighter

— Hon Lee (@kernelrage) October 21, 2014

Again, the speakers were fantastic. This time was many less of my direct friends and more of a general buzz. I enjoyed it a bunch.

Meltdown stepped in for VideoBrains lack of budget and as an investment to the event provided us with a bunch of flip chairs. It means people can view the talks better. Charlie’s still working on the photos but wait till they show up, you’ll see.

The videos from last time had a few problems, the camera we borrowed last time could only record for about 15-20 minutes at a time which lead to a bit of looping/magic with the footage. This time we got the a camera that could record for hours.

We recorded for hours. I haven’t seen all of the footage, but I’m informed it’s coming along pretty well.

What Went Badly?

Scheduling.

People didn’t really show up till 7.30, so we started the first talk at 7.30. In an effort to start the talks on time and still fit 7 in, I’m going to have to start the talks at 7 exactly. With this in mind I’m going to start opening the doors at 6.30 I think so we can start at 7.

Everything else was pretty good. I had more breaks, I pointed out the alternate routes to the bathroom and did some prepwork to stay confident and talk throughout. No one told me I should be more of a presence this time, so I think it’s all good.

Things to Consider

Getting people in at 7 on the dot is a big consideration. I’ll try the 6.30 opening and hopefully it’ll resolve but starting at 7.30 is too difficult for scheduling.

I’ve been thinking more about ticket prices for the future as a way to reduce the 50% drop out rate that I’m seeing. It’s grating to have to turn people away and then 50% of people don’t show up, so I’ll be looking into how to reduce that. I think what I’ll be trialling in December is a £5 ticket price that’ll give you one free drink when you get in – I still don’t want to price anyone out, so I’ll be leaving my email address up there so that anyone who can’t afford it can send me an email and I’ll send them a free ticket, sans the drink.

Me and Meltdown have agreed on dates from here all the way out to March, so that’s something. Expect more information on that soon.

We’ve also picked up Christos Reid on something of a “residency”. He’s been pitching more good quality talks then I know what to do with, and honestly, I want to share them. For the next few months he’ll be featuring repeatedly in the line up. Probably until he’s tired of the amount of work organising a talk takes.

Thank Yous

Thanks to my speakers: Laura K Dale, Rob Morgan, Thryn Henderson, Helen Gould, Ewan Kirkland, Seb Atay and Christos Reid.

Alan Williamson remained on hand throughout to bounce ideas off of via Skype.

Meltdown London again, particularly Duncan and Sam for manning the bar.

I’m also welcoming a few new faces to the “team” to help out.

Charlie Firth came back to film and photograph, and she did such a good job dealing with the YouTube last time, I asked her to help out as an official “one of the team” capacity. Thanks Charlie!

Will Blackstock came on board mid-month to help me organise this and take some of the strain off my shoulders. He’s helping with the blog and all of the stuff that I’m otherwise too stressed to deal with adequately. Will has been an absolute lifesaver in this, and it’s been appreciated.

Emma Sinclair is helping out by livetweeting the events, and writing some bits for the blog/looking after the Facebook.

Philippa Warr who I somehow missed off last month’s thanking of the speakers. Sorry Pip. I’m the worst.