An amazing 30+ people turned out for the first ever Las Vegas Beer & Blog happy hour! WOW! I can only claim personal responsibility for like 6 people, so the rest of you did a wonderful job spreading the word! Thank you so much for tweeting up a storm about it! (For future reference, our hashtag on Twitter is #bnblv so please include that in your tweets about the gathering.)
Bloggers (and groupies) in attendance tonight:
- Jacqueline Mason: Las Vegas Coupon Guide (under construction), jackie1776 on Twitter
- Neal Mason: 99 Problems But A Job Ain’t One, nealmason on Twitter
- Michelle Fox: Rally’s Mobile Blog, rally666 on Twitter
- Jake Ludens: Jake Ludens’ Mental Environment, PorkMullet, jakeludens on Twitter
- Stevie Puckett: Career Tips Blog (under construction), SteviePuckett on Twitter
- Michael Wilder: Learning in the Future, michaelwilder on Twitter
- Dianne Easley: PorkMullet, and the last person on Earth not on Twitter
- Dan Birlew: DanBirlew.com, dudieboy on Twitter
- Laura Coronado: Lollie Shopping, lollieshopping on Twitter
- Chris Rauschnot: The Macintosh Wizard and PC Tech Blog, 24k on Twitter
- Bill Cody: Las Vegas Real Estate, VegasBill on Twitter
- Sara Mooney, SaraMooney.com, Sara_Mooney on Twitter
- Brian Betz, Betz in Lanai, also the last person on Earth not on Twitter
- Zach Zeman, Spinabifida Won’t Stop Me, zm_dawg on Twitter
- Cindi Reed, C. Moon Reed, cmoonreed on Twitter
- Geroge Smoot, blogger groupie
- Jennifer Quade, blogger groupie
- Jennifer, I Own No More Castles in Spain, another person amazingly not on Twitter
- Justin Kistner: JustinKistner.com, justinkistner on Twitter
- Christine Kistner: Bunch of Design, emailstine on Twitter
- John Hawkins: John Hawkins Unrated, vegasgeek on Twitter
- Bob Firestone, Residual Income Isn’t An Accident, bobfirestone on Twitter
- Chris Hawkins
- Sean Wells: Libation Blog, libationblog on Twitter
- Richard Abowitz: Movable Buffet
- Sarah Gerke: Sarah in Vegas, Photostream, sarahinvegas on Twitter
- Dave Courvoisier: Voice-Acting in Vegas, courvo on Twitter
Unfortunately, I had to leave for class at 6:45 PM before I had a chance to meet or chat with many people, so I know that some are missing from the list — please let me know ASAP so I can get you on there! Thanks!
Richard Abowitz, reporter/blogger for the L.A. Times and Las Vegas Weekly came by and interviewed several people, and his photographer, Sarah Gerke, took several photos. I’ll let you know as soon as the story/pictures comes out.
Everyone seemed to be having a great time when I left. When I came back after class 3 hours later about 6-8 die-hard stragglers were still hanging on… the last of us finally ended up leaving around 11:30 PM!
I spoke briefly with the Freakin Frog staff on the way out. They were excited about us being there and our plans to make it a weekly event. They’d been surprised, like me, by the turnout — I’d originally told them I estimated 6-10 people would attend, and we ended up getting more than 3 times that! So if anyone had any service issues tonight, that’s probably why, and I expect that they’ll schedule more staff for us next week.
Please let me know if you took any pictures and if I may post them here, and please post links to any blog posts you write about the event.
Also, please all come back again next week!!!! See the comments of this post for a discussion about whether to keep it strictly an informal social event, or whether we should ever have a speaker or some sort of program.
Thank you, everyone, for coming! It was great meeting you! I hope you had a great time, I know I did!!!
Justin Kistner
Jacqueline Mason
John Hawkins
Sara Mooney
Michael Wilder
Michelle Fox
Wow, wow, wow. Simply amazing that we had roughly 30 people show up to our first Beer and Blog meeting. I knew that there was going to be a good chance that I would spend most of this week recounting WordCamp related stories. I hope to bring something new to the event next week.
Do we want to try and create some sort of format for the meetings, or do we want to just center them around being social and having a couple drinks? (I’m fine with both, for the record)
For anyone concerned about being accepted at the next Beer & Blog, see here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBXyB7niEc0
I would like to learn something. Maybe Q&A at least?
Maybe start from the ground up? Without good content you’re never going to get readers. I suggest selecting content.
I would just be happy if my name was spelled correctly
It would be cool to have some sort of structure to allow guests to speak if we have them.
What an amazing turnout!!!!!! I’m so excited that Linda Lou turned me onto this event. Her and I will definitely be there for one of the next ones. Woot woo!
It would be nice to learn some stuff, but I definitely like the social aspect. I’d be fine with just meeting new friends and having a couple of cocktails.
That sounds like a good idea, Sarah…ground up. Something like:
- picking a topic & voice for your blog
- installation, look & feel, widgets, plug-ins, upgrading
- content ideas and editorial schedule
- initiating participation and managing spam
- making money with your blog
- keeping up the motivation
After we talked about the basics we would be able to figure out who was expert in what then line out more specific topics.
I dunno…other ideas for discussion topics at meetings?
Christine and I had a great time meeting everyone! It was a very impressive turnout for a first meeting, especially considering how quickly the Chapter was assembled. Thanks for hosting us while we were there and we look forward to coming by again soon