I had this sitting in draft since the day after Ignite Denver 6… blog fail.
Looking back on Ignite Denver, a lot went well. A lot more needs improvement.
What went NOT awesome.
- We didn’t insist on Rackhouse closing to the public, so we had to compete with people there to drink.
- Rackhouse didn’t believe we’d bring in well over 250 (A new record for Ignite Denver), so we had seating issues.
- For some it wasn’t clear, the beer you got with donation was Flying Dog. Apparently a free beer is still game for bitching and complaining. We’ll be more clear.
- A comedian, while hilarious, is a bad idea for an Ignite intermission. Jill Tasei is very funny, but that wasn’t the right environment. My bad
- Slide deck roulette. I tried to be slick and have a slide deck only machine, and while that worked well, getting slides from speakers up until 1 hour before Ignite, was a huge fail. I was off my game in getting the master deck put together.
- From now on. Slides in 2 days before, or we select an alternate.
What went awesome
- We successfully live streamed Ignite Denver 6. That was the second time we’ve streamed, and the first was more a “well let’s just whip something up”. This time we planned on streaming from the beginning.
- We sold out, and then some. Not only did we break our previous attendance records, but we sold the place out.
- We raised money for charity. We gave a $200 check to the Bridge Project. Once we paid the bar tab for the speaker beers, and beers that came with donations, we cleared just a smidge over $200. It was great. The more you give us, the more we give to charity.
- Presentation selection. For the first time we had more submissions that we could actually use, which meant voting was a huge help in guiding our selection. It’s awesome to finally see more people getting interested in Ignite Denver.
- The Speed round. The only trouble was the aforementioned slide deck roulette troubles. But the speed round presentations themselves went really well. A good first run for sure.
So, with Ignite Denver now OFFICIALLY wrapped, LOL… Ignite Denver 7!
Taking what we’ve learned from the past 6, we’re going to hold Ignite Denver 7 at the Oriental Theatre on July 27th. Make sure to mark your calendar now! July 27th! If you haven’t already subscribe to the Denwhere calendar, ID7 is already on it!
That means: Huge screen, no bar noise, no trouble seeing the presenter!
Max attendance is again 250, let’s sell out ID7 faster than we did ID6!
We’re still working on charity selection, but we will definitely be donating to a charity. We’re gonna need a lot more donations too! Dig deep folks. Moving to a more awesome venue includes costs.
Donating is still optional. I strongly feel Ignite should not be a pay to play event. If you don’t want to donate, but want to be a part of something awesome, highlighting how kick ass Denver is, that’s totally cool. Charging, IMO is weak sauce.
The time table for ID7 is as follows!
June 21st we start accepting submissions.
July 2nd we STOP accepting submissions.
Voting is open July 5th thru 16th
See you there!