hpr-knowledge-base/hpr_transcripts/hpr0813.txt

Episode: 813
Title: HPR0813: Gemma Cameron aka @ruby_gem about Barcamp Blackpool
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr0813/hpr0813.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-08 02:55:40

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Hello everybody, my name is Canon Falam and you're listening to another episode of Hacker
Public Radio.
We've got an interview today with Gemma Cameron.
You might know her as Ruby underscore Gem online.
And she is the organizer of BarCamp Blackpool which will be held on the 15th of October 2010
at Blackpool Pleasure Beach.
Hi everybody, this is Ken Falam.
And talking today to Gemma Cameron, Ruby Gem.
How are you doing Ruby?
I'm really good, thank you.
How are you Ken?
Not too bad, not too bad.
Thanks very much for coming on and doing an interview with us today.
No thanks for having me.
First of all, can you tell us a little bit about BarCamp Blackpool?
Yeah, it started in 2009.
I think it was actually 17th of October, so it's going to be almost exactly two years
when we have the next one.
I don't know if you know anything about BarCamp's.
Well, I've just been to Ogcamp and probably everybody on the network is sick of hearing
me on about it.
If you could give people a rundown of what exactly a BarCamp is?
Okay, BarCamp is an organised conference, so rather than being like a traditional conference
where you would have your speakers lined up when you'd have people brought in specifically
to speak at the event.
BarCamps are very unique in the fact that the attendees create the content, so everyone
turns up in the morning, perhaps they prepare the talk.
And there's a board there with about three, maybe four different rooms on, with 20, maybe
even 40 minute intervals.
And you write your talk down, and a posting note, and you name it in the morning after
the presentation, everybody runs this big scrum to the board and puts their talk up
on the attendees as to which talks they want to go to, because it's usually about three
or four running at the same time.
It can be on absolutely anything, it doesn't have to be something techy, it doesn't have
to be anything mainstream or techy, so we've had talks at the first BarCamp from Learning
British Sign Language to introductions to Arduino, and even how to make a BBC Micro play
the organ, really different things.
Fantastic, our motto here on this network is Topics of Interest Hackers, and we've had
an equally eclectic selection of topics over the years.
One thing I've found at Alcamp, they had a scheduling software from John the Nice Guy from
CCHits.net, who I recorded in an interview sometime back with, have you considered using
some software like that, or are you just going to stick with the posted way of doing things?
We have considered using John Software, it was introduced last year as a concept, it's
been highly contended to say the least, there's a lot of people believe that BarCamp should
be kept quite analog, so that you do have this scrum in the morning, and you do have this
tactile interaction with the board and with the sessions.
Pull them down or rewrite them, it becomes quite organic.
We discussed bringing it in a game this year, and a game that's been very hotly debated.
However, Les and I have decided that we should definitely give Campfire a go.
I'm literally this evening in the process of squaring that off with John, who is a lovely
lovely man, he is a very nice guy.
Trying to make sure that it doesn't upset too many people, because it is a very hotly
contended issue.
It'd be nice to try it and see how it will work at a BarCamp.
Well, there was, on Camp there was definitely that feel of a scramble to get your dogs
posted.
I missed posting the talk on HPR the first day, because I was setting up the booth, and
I wasn't able to SMS, and I had no internet access, and by the time I came out the
whole day was full.
So, how do people then vote on which talk will go ahead?
Well, this is it with the analogue one, there is no voting.
It's literally people sticking the talks on.
We found with Blackpool that there is enough room for everybody to do a talk.
The first BarCamp buckle we had about 50 attendees, and then last year we had about 120.
It's incredibly popular, it's got quite a big fan base.
It really takes me by surprise.
I guess it's because it's the only BarCamp in Lancashire, I don't know if you can tell
from the accent, but that's where I'm from, and there's a really good community growing
up around there.
We all feel very passionately about technology and about where we come from.
We all love Lancashire, especially Blackpool.
But yeah, these people keep coming back and they keep bringing their friends.
So, even though we had 120 attendees last year, a lot of them were still quite new and
weren't quite so prepared to do a talk.
So we didn't have the word filling up too quickly.
We did end up having to accommodate some of the extra talks that crept in by creating
more spaces.
We've learned from that by looking at making the session lens shorter so that we can have
some more rooms.
If people, I always find that BarCamp's when people turn up and they've never been to
one before.
They find the environment very welcoming and a great place to practice public speaking
to try it out for the first time, and they may not want to do it at first, but after
the first few sessions, it's nice to have some gaps in there for newer people to put
stuff forward.
I recently did a BarCamp in Nottingham, which is where I've moved to.
We had quite a lot of new people come along there, and we had a similar sort of thing
with people wanting to add the talks, but because it was a two-day BarCamp or as Blackpool
is only a one-day BarCamp, a lot of people on the second day who perhaps wouldn't have
put a talk down on the first day were participating more.
That incidenting was at Nottingham Hackspace, so we had a really great varied crowd.
We had some amazing talks, really, really enjoyed that.
What's the venue like in Blackpool?
It's at the Pleasure Beach, so it's at an amusement park.
It's in the Casino building, there's basically some sort of event areas in the building
right next to the park, so we always have it in the Paradise Room, which is on the first
floor.
You're looking out over the prom, there's one of the rooms at the side, which is right next
to the big one.
So you can remember the first year, everyone was absolutely amazed that they're watching
a talk about, again, Android development, and they've got people hurtling past in a
rolecoaster screaming every, you know, like, 10, 20 minutes, it's fantastic.
Absolutely beautiful room that they do divide up for us as split as up.
There's a stage in there, really high quality, really beautiful place.
It's all Art Nouveau inside as well.
Very nice.
And how many tracks can you have, I don't think, given time?
Well, the room just split into three, however, the main room is rather large, and it does
have boots at the back, which is nice because people like to sit in those if they don't
want to go up to the house, want to go to a talk and just network.
We did split the other rooms into sort of two, but I think we're going to have to put
it back to three.
So we probably have three tracks going at once, but we are going to move it back to 20
minute sessions, so it's a lightning talk.
We tried that form, but I'm not sure when it works very well.
Yeah.
And do you have any vendor boots or anything like that?
Yeah, we've got the Ubuntu store coming again, which Les is going to be running from
the Blackpool Linux user group.
Yeah, so that'll be really nice.
If anybody listened into this, do you still have boots available?
We don't tend to do the boots because I say that the boots at the back are mostly used
by the attendees to sit up and to sort of get on.
If anybody is interested in putting up a boot, please get in touch with me and I'll consider
it for suitability.
It's just, yeah, Bob counts are supposed to be an organised, and I think having a boot
there so that people can get help installing Linux is a great thing to have, and it was
very, very popular next last year.
It would just depend on the suitability of the boots.
Fantastic.
Well, if anybody is in around Blackpool and would like to go there representing HPR or getting
some interviews, the whole track as we like to say here, I'm sure we will catch you
out with stickers and business cards and all, everything that you need for that.
So how do you pay for all of this?
Oh, it's often a sponsorship, which we are still in the process of trying to gather.
We are very close to getting enough money to cover the venue higher.
If we can get some more, it means that we can pay for some food and we get the venue
for free, which is fantastic.
So if anybody wants to put themselves in front of around, well, say 140 last year, so
we are expecting that to grow even more, so looking towards 200 geeks, if you want to advertise
yourself in front of them, they're not just from Lancashire, they're from all over the
UK.
We have people coming from, you know, from Bournemouth, from London, you know, from Newcastle
all over the place, just to come to Blackpool.
And it's a great weekend.
Yeah, I'm sorry, unfortunately, I won't be able to go giving the fact that I don't have
cash.
But, yeah.
Well, Blackpool, we must point out it's very cheap, that's another reason why it's not
a two day overnight bar camp, because you can stay in a bed and breakfast for 15 pounds
per person per night, including your breakfast, and you've got the illuminations going
on, so there's loads to do there, and obviously you've got the pleasure beach on the Sunday,
so yeah, it's a really good weekend away, we'd really recommend it for 30 pounds for both
nights and your breakfast, I think you'll have them.
The ideal for families, one day of geekness, and then second day, then on the beach with
the kids.
Definitely, yeah.
Yeah.
We do welcome people bringing the children we've had, we've had a couple of people do that
over the last year, and it worked very well.
We've had Ethan, David Graham, he DJs for us on the Saturday night, he brought his little
ad along, and he did us an animation, he's a session on how to do stick animations,
and he's in the machine, it's brilliant.
Oh, fantastic.
Are you going to be recording any of the events or?
Quite possibly, yes.
Let's be looking into that at the moment, it'd be great if we could get some of the sessions
out there live, but we do have a massive following online, not just people like you
sell to, we'd love to come along, but perhaps, you know, they're busy or they can't, they
can't afford to get there, but yeah, hopefully we'll have something out there for you, so
you can feel like you're there on the day.
Yeah, it would be fantastic.
Just without roller coasters.
Yes, exactly.
Well, even then, it adds to the whole atmosphere of the thing.
So I'm just looking here at the sponsorship packages that are available, so you could,
there are £50, which I don't know, I'll check while we're at home, we're talking how
much that is in real money.
You can get a funny girl's logo on your opening and closing presentation, can you show me
what?
It's not a funny girl, it's the package is called Funny Girls, the people who are familiar
with Blackpool, there is a cabaret show called Funny Girls, and it's men dressed as women
performing for you, so it's a really amazing drag act, really good fun.
So we've called the packages something amusing, so the Funny Girls package is £50, and
that will get your logo on the website, so your logo on the opening and closing speech,
I believe, I need to get this up as well, so I prefer to it.
That's only a mere $79 US dollars.
It's pretty cheap, we've started low because we know it's a recession, we know it's a recession,
we would love to get as many local companies involved as possible, and if you sponsor
we really do encourage you to come along, it's a great way of interacting with people.
As they're Blackpools an amazing place to go, there's no one to see side resort, quite
like it in the world.
It does have a reputation, right?
Yeah, last piece of place is a spice of Blackpool, but they never quite get the balance
right?
It all seemed to be windy to me, must say.
Yeah, I'm from that part of the world, and I used to work just down the coast at
Warton, and there's this phenomenon called horizontal rain there, it literally just
come underneath your umbrella and destroy it right into your face.
The wind is something else, it's probably going through all the time.
Having lived in Norway and the west coast of Ireland, I'm familiar with the concept
of horizontal rain.
Yes.
Tell me, is there sand on the beach or is it a shell on our stones?
It is sand with concrete with donkeys and three pears, not one, three.
Three pears, unbelievable folks, you heard it here, and I can't talk with radio.
Is there anything else that we forgot to cover?
As I said, the sponsorship packages, they start at £50 and they go all the way up £2,000.
We really do value getting some sponsorship money, because the more we get in, the more
we can provide our attendees with.
It's a full day from 9 o'clock, the doors are locked at 9 o'clock, and it'll go on all
the way until the small hours.
It's a really good night out, a fantastic day, you'll meet a lot of very interesting people,
a lot of very passionate people, and it is Lancashire's only bar camp.
Thank you very much for the interview, was there anything else that we forgot to mention?
In addition to sponsorship, we've also really appreciated some swag.
People at bar camps love to take things away, and it's a great way to get your business
with your company, your idea across the people.
We've got some bar camp blackpool rock already, which is sponsored by a Tesla, and that goes
down well every single year.
What's blackpool rock for those of us living under a rock?
Rock is something that you get whenever you go to a seaside resort, it's a sugary,
confectionery treat.
Very good.
So you're looking for sponsors, and the website is baracampblackpool.com.
I'm guessing.
It is, yes, we've also got some tickets available as well.
If you're really fancy coming along, we've not got that many left, probably about just
over 30.
So if you want to come along, you need to get snapping those tickets up quick.
And where can I get those?
baracampblackpool.com.
Click on the tickets link.
And do you have to pay for those or are they free?
It's entirely free.
Okay, cool.
And you're on the Twissards as well.
I am on the Twitterverse, yes.
We've got a BC blackpool for the blackpool, Twitter link.
And myself is Ruby underscore gem.
Okay.
Fantastic.
Again, thank you very much for coming online.
See you soon and everybody.
Tomorrow for another exciting episode here on Hacker Public Radio.
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