Steve and I attended Ignite Boulder 5 last week, and in my opinion, it was much improved over number 4. This time, I arrived early enough to enjoy some of the beer (even though we had to pay this time), and while trying to find some seats, I spotted a whole section of seats available at the front. Being a recent student, I automatically assumed that no one was sitting there because no one ever wants to sit in the front (in school, at least, although I never had a problem with it). So I dragged Steve to the front and we promptly sat down to enjoy our beer. It soon became apparent, though, that the section was reserved for volunteers and speakers (even though there were no signs that I could see). We were both really uncomfortable throughout the first half of presentations, and as soon as break rolled around, we hightailed it out of there to go sit on the balcony. Oops?

Overall, the presentations were great. The first couple had me really laughing, although they weren’t really informative in the practical sense. It’s unfortunate that the few that truly were informative were not received as widely as those that were more silly and humorous. The last one, “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Accept that a Googolplex is a Really Big Number” by David Walton was my favorite, and I felt it combined information and humor in a really great way.

After the presentations came the live music. The first band, “The Autumn Film” had a really nice sound, but I didn’t feel their sound was appropriate for an “after party.” It was just much too slow, and as someone on the Twitter feed commented, it would have been much better as pre-party or intermission music. Steve and I left before the second band came on, as we still had to make the drive back to Denver/Fort Collins. Overall, I really enjoyed #5, although #6 would have to have some really amazing-sounding presentations for another trip to Boulder to be worth it.

I had the opportunity to attend the 4th annual Ignite Boulder a few weeks ago and had a wonderful time. For those who have not heard of Ignite, I would highly recommend checking out their website. In short, however, Ignite is described as:

“A night of presentations on a variety of topics, with a twist. Each presentation has 20 slides, that automatically advance after 15 seconds.”

I think my favorite of the night was “My Mom Just Joined Facebook. Now What?” by Ryan Wanger, but “‘Ye Olde Prince of Bel-Air’, a medieval translation” by David Mason followed in a close second.

The first annual Ignite Fort Collins will be happening on May 28th, and tickets go on sale tomorrow morning at 9:25 a.m. Hope to see you all there!