ArtCamp is for you!

ArtCamp is an opportunity for all creatives, artists, entrepreneurs and innovators to come together, share experiences, and possibly create new value from  the day. It’ll be a chance to meet up with people who’ve been there, done that and bought the t-shirt – members of the creative community, business community and representatives from the relevant agencies.  Come along to ArtCamp, who knows what new opportunities might present themselves?

It’s not just technology, stupid!

People tend to associate *Camps with the Web and the technology start-ups, but our aim is to try and embrace as much of the Irish creative community as possible. We want to see people from all streams – artists, musicians, writers, dancers, actors, administrators, curators, arts workers and technology and media professionals, coders, designers, project managers, finance, operations, HR, legal, delivery specialists, R&D, marketing – and yes, even tech! Ireland Inc. has a wealth of creativity, knowledge and acumen, more than enough to help us out of these troubled times. By attending (and, more importantly, contributing!) you can help make ArtCamp the first “good news story” of 2010.

Still not convinced?

Hey, it’s free, what have you got to lose? This is a user-generated conference, so it’s up to you what you bring to and take from the day. If you want to learn and share your thoughts with some of the brightest and enthusiastic minds in the country, then ArtCamp is for you.

What is ArtCamp?

ArtCamp is a user generated un-conference for creatives.

Calling all creatives from visual arts, to film, theatre, design, dance, literature, photography, media, IT,  music and technology to a free conference/gathering in Dublin Spring 2010. The aim of ArtCamp is to share creative experiences and expertise across all industry platforms to learn from each other; to find creative solutions and harness our collective potential. If you are an artists of words or code, images or pixels, movement or drama come along and be inspired. We have much to learn form each other.

Seriously - what is it?

It’s a chance for us all to lift ourselves out of the gloom of the endless bad news stories. It’s based on the fact that each of us  has loads to learn from our peers. And we have a lot to share with as well. There are a lot of great cretive things happening in the Ireland right now- this day will be a celebration of creative interaction.

It’s free, what’s the catch?

You take the main cost of a “proper” conference away (the flown in experts) and get sponsors to cover the venue and other expenses. And then 100 or so gather together  and a number of them/you/us will give short talks on things we know or have learned which will be valuable to share with the others.

Great idea, it will never actually work.

ArtCamp is based on the Barcamp concept which started in the US and has now being used in every continent in the world. In Ireland there have been 14 Camps  since September 2006 - each of them successful. Click here for a full listing of those.

Ok, kinda interested now. Why haven’t I heard of this before now?

Because the Irish Camps to date have been almost exclusively focused on the technology community and promoted within that sector. This is the first to be held which focuses on all aspects of the creative community in its broadest sense, and it will be especially of interest to any and all entrepreneurs who want to build Irish businesses which can compete internationally.

I’ll sign up to attend, but not sure about talking.

At each event about 1/3 of the attendees give talks. It can be daunting for the first time. Everything about this is voluntary so don’t worry about just attending - please do sign up.

Once you have done give the idea of a talk one last chance - the day does not work without it!

I hate listening to Sales Pitches

So do we - every one of us. Life is too short. Talks at ArtCamp can be based on things like:

• skill sets which a speaker will share,
• experiences that are relevant for others to hear about or
• lessons learned that will help the audience to avoid similar
• best practice

Talks are explicitly not about sales pitches and the Rule Of Two Feet will be open to all - if you are caught in a sales pitch then stand up and walk out. We will be making this clear to all speakers to help them get into the spirit of the day.

Have fun, participate and enjoy!

Who’s behind ArtCamp?