Well, LugRadio Live 2006 is over – roll on 2007 
I promise that this will be the last post that only talks about LRL for at least 6 months. (Probably).
In last year’s review I said that LRL06 “will probably be bigger, better, (possibly even more scrotal*).” and it was. Not only was it a 2 day event, but the venue was much bigger. In fact, this years venue was exponentially better, I felt. So, let’s try and cover all the bases – what I did, what was good, what was bad, and an overall summary……
What I did
Friday
We arrived around 5pm on Friday, having had a very hot journey down the motorway, with a few delays and a couple of hairy moments. (We being me, pickle, seaLne and Heather in my car, and neuro and Felim in neuro’s car). We dropped off Heather and the train station, and then Kenny at his hotel (which was in the centre of town). Then it was off to the venue to drop off the stack of kit that I had brought for the LAN gaming. It was great to see the venue before all the people got in and to help with a bit of setup.
After that it was back to the hotel to drop off our bags, and then in to the Hogshead for the evenings entertainment, courtesy of a lift from Xalior and lejt. It was great to meet up with old friends from last year, new friends from IRC during the year, and a whole bunch of other people that I didn’t know at all Sadly the Hogshead wasn’t doing food for some reason, which meant that the whole thing got split up as we went for food, with only 9 of us in the excellent Chinese buffet. After that it was back to the Hogshead for a bit, but in the end I went back to the hotel fairly early – I wanted to be fresh on Saturday morning.
Saturday
Getting the LAN gaming set up was a chore, with things being a little bit stubborn. But we were up and running by 1130, which was good (although I had hoped to be done by 1030 really) and we had I think 6/7 clients running for most of the weekend. I then sat in on the excellent Jokosher BOF sesson. Lunch was the #lugradio meet ‘n’ greet which was partly spoiled by the fact that our chosen venue (the Varsity) only had 1 staff member on duty, so the food took ages to come for those that ordered, and thus is splintered the group as people went in search of sustenance.
The afternoon saw some more gaming and some more talks – not least kNo’s excellent “This talk may contain swearing”, which was utterly fantastic. The highlight of the day was, of course, “LugRadio Live and Unleashed”, and we cheered and laughed our way to the end of the day, with me passing on the mantle of Community Hero to Xalior.
The big party in the evening also brought me some pizza (which was a relief). I spent some of the evening playing on the MAME cabinet, which was one of the coolest things there, and just generally chatting to folk, and drinking beer 
Had a really good discussion about users vs community members with a group of guys, which I continued later on with Matt and Pickle on the way back to the hotel. Perhaps the best bit of the evening was when the DJ stopped playing, and we just sat round chatting and finishing our drinks. Bedtime: around 3am
Sunday
Tired (but not hungover), I headed in for around 10ish, giving a list to the internet’s Ted Haeger which included a good discussion, despite the lack of working brain cells at that time of the morning. Sundays highlights included Simon Willisons talk on Django, Edward Herveys talk on Pitivi, the girls of #lugradio on Women in Open Source, and Seb Payne’s talk about iFolder. Then the guys said goodbye to everyone, and we began to pack up.
This was probably the low point of the weekend – packing everything away, and realising that it was finished. The 4 large gents looked knackered, too. If that had been the end, and we’d all gone home to bed, I think I would’ve been very sad 
But with a gentle bit of arm twisted, we managed to get not 1, not 2, not even 3, but all 4 of the presenters along to the Quality Hotel (aka Quality Chin) for the after-show party. We broke out the (rest of the) champagne and strawberries, and drank the night away with some top quality banter, a lot of laughs, and really just a full-on fantastic evening. In many ways, for me at least, this evening really made my weekend.
Monday
We went home
The Good, the Bad, and the rest
Good
- Meeting people again
- Quality speakers
- Great social aspect
- Good exhibition
- Loads of punters
- Just being part of LugRadio again
- LAN gaming
- MAME cabinet
- _So_ many other things……
Bad
- Heat – it was hot weather, and the hotel had a heating problem (it was ON!), and the venue’s air conditioning was gubbed.
- As a few people have already said, 2 of the BOF points were in the same room as the main talks, which was not ideal
- Getting food was an issue
- As will always happen, talks that I wanted to see clashed with each other
Overall though, this was a stunning event. It was, for the most part, well organised and slickly run. Loads of people were there (400+ they reckon) and everything felt very ‘community’ rather than corporate. And, ultimately, it reminds me why I’m part of this community – because it’s awesome!
mrBen