World Blender MeetUp Day – Saturday August 23rd 2014

World Blender MeetUp Day – Saturday August 23rd 2014

Congratulations to all Blenderheads around the globe for making our Blender MeetUp community something really special. The history of some Blender groups go back several years, but our Blender worldwide community on MeetUp.com celebrates a sort of two year anniversary from March 30th 2014. In honor of that achievement, we propose a World Blender MeetUp Day where local Blender groups coordinate on a common day to join together online, socialize and share information (MeetUp.com participation is not required).

The event will be similar to regular local city-based Blender meetings, but with as many groups as possible scheduling their events on the same day: Saturday August 23rd 2014. We are researching online webcasting services to enable local MeetUps to share presentation sessions.

If you run a local Blender meeting, please do this now: Create a “World Blender MeetUp Day: Saturday August 23rd 2014 - Save the Date” event post on your city Blender MeetUp page or on whatever site you use to manage your group.

In the meantime, some fun facts follow about our many local Blender events:
· Number of days since launch of the worldwide Blender MeetUp.com community: 730 days (two years)
· Total number of Blenderheads registered on MeetUp.com: 1050 people
· Number of cities with Blender event announcements on BlenderNation (since February 22, 2006): 84



World Blender Meetup Day is just a couple weeks away! If you are organizing an event or want to organize an event on August 23rd please PM FutureHack here or leave a message here if you have not done so already.

Here are some of the cities so far:
Holland
Belgium
Poland
Indianapolis
Kingsport
London
LA
Melbourne
Paris
Perth
Phoenix
Portland
Reno
Seattle
Toulouse
Vancouver
Vienna
Minnesota
Chicago
Marly

Check the following link to see if your city already has a Meetup scheduled or to schedule one via the Meetup Community pages:http://www.meetup.com/Blender/?see_all=1

We are organizing and coordinating the main large groups and finalizing the online webcast technology and platform that will be used. So things are taking shape. We will update more information here as it becomes available.
Thanks and see you on the 23rd!

PS: we do have a private mailing list so make sure and contact us if you want to be included in the organization and planning meetings.

EVENT INFORMATION POST: (everything will be collected here in this post)

We have a page up also with the help of the Viennese group:
http://vienneseblend.org/wbmd/
You can find more info there.

We have the live YouTube stream page link setup by Dave, our host at TheoryAnimation.com
http://theoryanimation.com/blog/world-blender-meetup-day-2014

We also have an IRC channel setup now on freenode.net : #wbmd2014
If you do not have a chat client on your computer it is easy to use Freenode’s web browser version at http://webchat.freenode.net/
Just enter in a user name and #wbmd2014 as the channel, figure out the Captcha, lol…and you can type away and read whatever anyone else types. This is a way to have two way chat.

Also if you go to http://www.meetup.com/blender you can join an existing group or to setup a new one in your area.
Any group that has two or more people meeting up on Saturday the 23rd can take part in our online webcast. Even if you just want to introduce yourselves.

Twitter Feed Hashtag:
#wbmd2014

Just post a response here or get ahold of us from any of the above mentioned links and we will set you up with the ability to broadcast.

SEE YOU ON THE 23rd!

Make posts below and I will update this specific post with the information.
Thanks

The event has been posted to Blender Nation:

It’s one day away so stay tuned!

The question came up on Linux compatibility of the live interaction. The videos will be streamed also to Youtube so they can be watched there live. Keep an eye here and on http://vienneseblend.org/wbmd/ for the link.

Sorry for those in Germany that may not be able to get the stream. Try the interactive webcast from the link on the page. It works on everything except Linux.

We have been working on getting OpenMeetings up and running especially for its Linux compatibility but we may not make it in time. If I can get it configured and stable in time I will post the link here and on the main page.

I will be posting WBMD2014 resource and web links from presenters on the top of this page. If you are a presenter, please put your links in a comment and I will collect them all and put them on the top of this page…

That way this thread will be a reference to any web links you want to share.
I will post the info to post #3 above.
Thanks!

New info page with the live stream link added by are awesome host Dave at TheoryAnimation.com
http://theoryanimation.com/blog/world-blender-meetup-day-2014

Scroll down on the blog and you will see the live YouTube stream link.
Thanks Dave!

Today is the day! We have been live for several hours now. Vienna will be going live in about an hour so check out the links in post #3 above!
See you there!

Thanks everybody for a great event. We had lots of participation, some excellent presentations and as always great blenderheads!
We have already been talking about doing it again next year! Yay!

Thanks again!

Follow-up time. Here’s a repost of Stirling’s BlenderNation post:

6 Cities participated in the World Blender Meetup day this year. Check out a quick overview of the event, or watch all the sessions in detail!
Stirling Goetz writes:
World Blender Meetup Day 2014 recorded content is now online and available for all! Kudos to all the Blenderheads around the world who participated and made the event fun and informational.
Some fun facts about our first WBMD event:

  • 6 different cities in 4 different time zones
  • 20 at peak in IRC and 20 at peak on our voice/video conference system
  • 44+ in-person Blenderheads in various locations
  • 589+ YouTube hits on our live re-broadcast of the event

A playlist of all the session talks can be found here.