The first Geeknic, right here near Philadelphia, took place yesterday at Betzwood Park. We topped out at around 30 people, we invited folks from Ubuntu Pennsylvania, Ubuntu New Jersey, PLUG, PhillyGeek, PASUG, PACS, Temple ACM, a few other nearby LUGs and through advertising in the Freenode motd (yes, some people do read those!). We even had one person come down from NYC to attend.
I arrived around quarter after noon to select a spot, we lucked out and got a nice place with a little shade and 3 tables near a grill. I met up with Jonathan Simpson (my co-planner and grill master for the day) and his two sons soon after. We got the grill started right at 1PM and people quickly became arriving. Before we knew it we had a couple dozen attendees, all having brought lots of food! The afternoon was mostly spent eating and talking. There was a couple frisbees and a half dozen kids to keep things lively (note to self: frisbees, horseshoes, other activities next time?). Aside from a little wind late in the day, the weather held out and was sunny and warm enough for t-shirts, I even got a bit of a sunburn, ouch.
One of the women who came out from Temple’s ACM even made Ubuntu cupcakes! They melted a bit during travel, but they were still quite recognizable :)
More photos are posted on the Ubuntu Pennsylvania Gallery:
http://gallery.ubuntupennsylvania.org/main.php?g2_itemId=556
http://gallery.ubuntupennsylvania.org/main.php?g2_itemId=622
In all I’d say the event was quite a success. It was great to see so many new folks come out, and getting to inform each other about other groups out there. Plus, while a majority of the attendees were Linux geeks we did get get lots of cross-geek talking done too (Linux geeks! Science geeks! SciFi geeks!). And even though it was an outdoor event, I admit that I did get my hands on Nita’s iPhone to play a zombie game (whatever Jonathan tells you, it was a game, I wasn’t checking IRC!).