A Very W00tstock Halloween

It's going to be an intense Halloween weekend for our American cousins on the East Coast and in Texas, with four W00tstock shows scheduled for New York, Boston, Austin and Dallas. That's in addition to last night's show in Los Angeles which, if the Twitter traffic is anything to go by, was a great success.

Make sure to track W00tstock on Twitter and check the W00tstock Wiki for photos and videos. As dressing up seems to be a requirement, there should be some geeky outfits around!

Breaking News!

It is with a heavy heart that I type these words, as news filters through the Internet that Wil has quit W00tstock, citing Storm's "dickishness" and the fact that he spilled beer on Wil's Munchin cards. Allegedly.

We wait to hear whether Paul and Storm and Adam can negotiate a contract with Wil's last name. Fingers crossed!

Hopeful Arr

Last Thursday saw an announcement about two new W00tstock shows, 2.5 and 2.5.1, both in San Francisco at the Great American Music Hall on September 16th and 17th. As always, if you're going to be there, grab your tickets and get ready for an evening of awesome.

There was also news of dates (to be confirmed) in October and November, for the East Coast and "elsewhere". Now, before the "squee's" get too loud, also tucked away in the announcement was this comment:

"Sorry, UK; we love you, and you’re definitely in our hearts and long-term plans; but it’s probably just not feasible this year."

 So "elsewhere" presumably equals "Canada". Dejected Arr.

The UK is in the long-term plan? Hopeful Arr! I think most people would agree that a W00tstock show this year was far beyond our expectations, but knowing that we're in there somewhere gives me enough motivation to press on.

So, the carrot has been dangled. Let's get W00tstock into people's hearts and minds and make sure that when the announcement does come, we're going to be filling those shows to capacity!

Triple Figures And A Question

After a month and a half of steady growth, we've reached our first milestone. As of today, we have 102 Eventful Demands for W00tstock in the UK. That's over one-fifth of all the Demands for W00tstock! This is a tremendous achievement. Well done, everybody!

What now?

Tell your friends about W00tstock. Send them links to the video clips and to the performers' sites. Get people excited about the possibility of W00tstock UK.

And now for a new angle. Back before W00tstock 2.4, Molly Lewis sent this reply to a tweet from @d_olsen:

"There may be a UK W00t in the future, but I probably wouldn't be able to afford joining them."

This got me thinking. Molly's such an integral part of W00tstock now that it wouldn't feel right without her being there. If it would ensure we got to see our favourite geek culture performers and they got to come over here and perform, would people be willing to club together and help out with / cover her costs? It's just a suggestion, so your comments on this would be greatly appreciated.

That Was The W00t That Was

The Web was alive with the sound of w00t last Thursday as geeks and nerds, geekettes and nerdettes, braced themselves for the Awesome Foursome (Fawesome?) that are Wil Wheaton, Adam Savage and Paul and Storm, and the arrival of Wootstock 2.4, San Diego.

I managed an entire night's sleep before The Captain's Wife's Lament wrapped the show at around 8.35am UK time and the flood of photos and videos began shortly after, as tired, wired audience members began maxing out San Diego's wi-fi networks.

While I was expecting to have to go find the best bits myself, I've been saved the trouble by the wonderful work of YouTube user GeekyPleasures, to whom I would like to extend many thanks and much appreciation! And now, for your delight and delectation, W00tstock 2.4:

W00tstock 2.4 - San Diego - Thursday July 22nd

Starts - 7.30pm

Ends - Sometime around the heat death of the universe, if past shows are anything to go by.

Guests -

• Singer / songwriter Marian Call
• Real rock star drummer Jason Finn (Presidents of the United States of America)
• Writer Matt Fraction
• Comedian Chris Hardwick ("Web Soup", the Nerdist podcast)
• Singer / songwriter Molly Lewis
• Artist Len Peralta
• Astronomer, lecturer and author Phil Plait ("Bad Astronomy" blog)
• Rifftrax stars Bill Corbett, Kevin Murphy and Mike Nelson
• Magician Jamy Ian Swiss

And special surprise guests!

Tickets (for you lucky people who'll be in town) at http://bit.ly/w00tstockSD!

I'll be trawling YouTube and Flickr for the highlights from the show. In the meantime, why not show your support for W00tstock UK and Demand It with Eventful.com.

If you're going to San Diego Comicon, have a superb time! If you're going to W00tstock, excuse me while I sit in the corner and beat a green-eyed monster into submission. Oh, and have a great time, because you will, obviously.

Obligatory Facebook Group

Can Haz W00tstock UK Plz now has its very own Facebook group!

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=138175236197274

Show your support for W00tstock UK and join the group.

W00tathon 1.0b

W00tathon 1.0b was held on Saturday 19th June 2010, using the #w00tathon hash-tag on twitter. For your convenience and enjoyment, here are the YouTube videos that made up W00tathon 1.0b:



















































Thank you to the people below who kindly filmed various W00tstocks and took the time to upload them to YouTube:

• http://www.youtube.com/user/microbless
• http://www.youtube.com/user/mujachan
• http://www.youtube.com/user/shademoonrunner
• http://www.youtube.com/user/grnbrgb
• http://www.youtube.com/user/betaorbust
• http://www.youtube.com/user/lharbron
• http://www.youtube.com/user/MichaelMidnight
• http://www.youtube.com/user/AdamUnedited
• http://www.youtube.com/user/mytube2180
• http://www.youtube.com/user/d3photographydotcom
• http://www.youtube.com/user/jaimewurth
• http://www.youtube.com/user/vlogbrothers
• http://www.youtube.com/user/cromely

 "Academy Award Winnng Movie Trailer", original video by http://www.britanick.com/

The Beta Release

So, here's the plan for the first w00tstock UK sign-up drive.

UPDATED

Start: 6pm, Friday June 18th. The blog has been updated with the starting w00tcount. We are now have a w00tcount of 95. Let's get that number higher, people!

#w00tathon 1.0b, 7pm - 10pm-ish, Saturday June 19th

In honour of w00tstocks past, I'm planning a three-ish hour extravaganza designed to whet your appetite for all things w00tstock. Starting from 7pm, Saturday June 19th, every 15 minutes I'll be tweeting the best YouTube clips from all the shows so far, as chosen by you, finishing up at 10pm-ish with the astounding, the epic, the awesome "Eternal Arr" from w00tstock 2.2 (Chicago). Yes, that's right, we're going to create a virtual w00tstock in the comfort of our own twitter stream!

In-between, watch the videos, tweet your mates, use the #w00tathon hashtag and just spread the word!

Disclaimer: This is definitely a beta release of #w00tathon and things may of course go squiffy. This is the internets after all. I'm going to do my best to make it a fun evening, though. I hope you'll bear with me.

End: 6pm, Sunday June 20th. The final w00tcount will be posted and we will either give an exultant "w00t!" or a plain and simple Dejected "Arr". It's in your hands, British geeks. Let's do this!

First Steps

What's the plan?

Updated!

New post below: Retweet.

Demand w00tstock. The current UK locations with Eventful Demands are shown in the sidebar. Please let me know if I've missed one!

Please be sensible and choose just one Demand.

Tell your friends about w00tstock.

Show them the videos.

Buy (and listen to) Messrs. Paul and Storm's music.

Buy (and read) Mr. Wil Wheaton's books.

Watch (and enjoy) Mr. Adam Savage's show, MythBusters.

Share all of the above with your friends. Get them hooked!

The first sign-up drive starts Friday 18th June at 6pm BST until Sunday 20th June at 6pm BST. The goal? Increase the Eventful Demand It counts. Choose an existing Demand or make a new one. Get people interested enough to Demand It. Show the guys that the UK wants w00tstock. If they know the demand is there, one day the stars will align. One day.

Retweet

It started like any other Wednesday. Tea. Coding. Questionable Content, xkcd, Abstruse Goose and Penny Arcade. Coffee. Coding. Lunch. WWdN, Slashdot, The Register. Coffee. TweetDeck whiled the day away in one of the Spaces. Coffee. Coding. Coffee. It was during this particular coffee break that I noticed the tweet.

I have a #w00tstock search set up and, while nursing the coffee, I saw the following:

"@wilw How about a #w00tstock UK? We're missing out over here in Blighty."(http://twitter.com/d_olsen/statuses/16307322419)

I put my mug down and tapped a reply:

"@d_olsen have a look at http://tinyurl.com/2btlrl5. Trying to get some interest going :-) #w00tstock"

Two retweets followed (thanks @kwmurphy and @d_olsen!).

"OK," I thought. "There's some interest here. Cool."

Then...

"Dear UK: the #w00tstock organization is listening. http://tinyurl.com/2btlrl5 (thx @kwmurphy and @dkplewis)"
(http://twitter.com/paulandstorm/statuses/16309664987)

Yup. Paul or Storm. It is, as they say, ON.

A quick reply via twitter generated 27 new Eventful demands, so I'm hoping the sign-up drive will add a few more. Let's see if we can make some noise!

I'll post some ideas for the drive tomorrow morning. If you want to help spread the word, please get in touch.

The Reply

Time wandered lazily by. Work slammed me, I wrote alliteration-laced prose for Wil and John Scalzi's Unicorn-Pegasus-Kitten fan-fic competition and attended @media 2010 in London. The idea curled up in a warm corner of my mind and had a bit of a doze. I checked the inbox regularly. Just the usual stuff. I would nod sagely and go back to creating D&D 4E characters, because that's the way I roll.

The idea stretched, yawned and scratched itself. I felt it moving around and gave it a quick prod, to make sure it was still active. Metaphorically sucking on a bitten finger (which is incidentally the name of my Annie Lennox cover band), I decided to try the email address on the w00tstock site. Very shortly, I had a reply.

(Note to self, organise yourself *before* you start writing a post, that way you don't have to wait a day before you can continue)

Mr. Paul of Messrs. Paul and Storm took the time to write back. To whit:

"It's not so much about getting a particular number (though certainly the more, the better); an eventual UK w00tstock tour is definitely something we'd love to do.

It's more about aligning all our schedules such that we can take the time needed to do such a tour; that's the hard part.

So a sign-up drive will certainly be helpful in spurring us on, but it's not like we'll hit some magic number and then decide to do it."

The idea stretched, trying out wobbly legs, getting its balance. Of all the possible replies, this was a good balance between hope and reality. I wasn't expecting "dig out the extension cables and the lawn chairs, we'll be right there", but there was a bit of me dreading "yeah, nice idea, but too expensive, it'd never work".

The idea tried a couple of steps, just to see what would happen.

The Question

The discussions following Wil's blog post continued with another commenter, who'd done a fair amount of work researching what a UK w00tstock would entail. For my part, I decided to drop an email to Messrs. Paul and Storm through their Contact Us form, as they'd toured with Mr. Jonathan Coulton last year and might have an idea about the numbers and logisitics required to get w00tstock to the UK.

The idea was in motion.

The Idea

They always start the same way. Someone says something, someone else chimes in, another four or six-pence worth gets added into the pot and before you know it (and usually without expecting it), you get smacked upside the head by an idea.

This idea was no different. There was already an idle concept of "it'd be really cool to have a w00tstock in the UK perhaps they could call it 'w00tstock en-GB' no that's really silly still it'd be fun and I wouldn't be thinking up ways to spend all that money to fly to the US", but when Mr. Wil Wheaton posted on his blog ("In a lot of ways, for me, W00tstock felt like finally finding a home base."), it got me. Right between the eyes. You can still see the mark.

There was some discussion about getting a show in the UK. I suggested we'd need 300 people and a venue. Wil replied with an estimate of at least double that. That left me with a worry that the w00tstock atmosphere might suffer if the audience numbers had to be larger than for US shows. I went to bed determined to see what people thought.

Introduction

What on earth is "w00tstock"?!?

To put it simply, w00tstock is awesome. Three-ish hours of the very best entertainment that geek culture can provide, courtesy of Mr. Adam Savage, Mr. Wil Wheaton and Messrs. Paul and Storm, and a selection of special guests. Previous shows have included musical interludes from Miss Molly Lewis, Mr. MC Frontalot and Miss Felicia Day, Mr. Sandeep Parikh and Mr. Jeff Lewis from The Guild.

Here's what Mr. Storm of Messrs. Paul and Storm says about w00tstock.

OK, sounds fun. What's it like?

I haven't been lucky enough to go to a show yet. Which is sort of the point of this blog. Anyway, have a look at the w00tstock Flickr photosets, check out some audience videos on YouTube and subscribe to the official YouTube channel. That should give you a feeling for the level of epicness achieved during the three-ish hours. Special attention must be drawn to the w00tstock 2.2 Chicago show, where the 3 minute-or-so "Captain's Wife's Lament" took the cast 35 minutes to perform!

Yes!! I want w00tstock!! What's next?

First, we need an audience to spur on the w00tstock guys. All you need to do is go to w00tstock's Eventful page and add a demand or use the Eventful widget on the right-hand side of the page to demand a London show. After you've added your voice, spread the word far and wide!