I was halfway through writing a long-ass blog post about this, but then I figured it’s probably not fitting for an event that is entirely built out of short 20 minute sessions to be written up as a 500 word blog post.

So instead, let me say that I had an incredible time. I’ve waited long enough for a BarCamp to come to Manchester (that I could attend, I missed the first one) and I wasn’t disappointed. You can read all about BarCamps, and I highly recommend that you do, but just go out and attend one. If you can’t find one in your area, start one. And it doesn’t have to be about technology.

The venue for this Manchester BarCamp was Contact theatre, I’ve never been before – though it seems like a great venue for non-BarCamp stuff – and worked out really well for us too. It’s an arty type place, so not used to the geek-ageddon that descended on that November weekend, but they seemed to have an overwhelmingly positive response to what we were doing. Obviously disappointed that their own community didn’t have a similar event.

All in all, I want to say thank you to all the organisers, sponsors (so-much-free-food!) and all the people who put on sessions. I perfected my 30 second pitch for Giglr, learnt about some great resources for Arduino development, got involved in some interesting debate about copyright, chatted to a few people I recognised from mailing lists I’m on, played some toy drums (, guitar and regrettably sang a little too), learnt about launching an iPhone app, met some friendly folks working on a project that should prove useful for Giglr, and so many other things.

My only regret is that some of these talks didn’t last more than 20-30 minutes. Several talks I left feeling I could ask questions for hours! I guess they’ll have to wait for BarCamp Manchester 3 … so whose organising that one then?