Geek Pride Festival

The Geek Pride Festival was the name of a number of events between 1998 and 2000, organized by Tim McEachern and devoted to computer geek activities and interests. The name of the festival is most often associated with the large event held on March 31 and April 1, 2000 at the Park Plaza Castle in Boston.

Before that there were 2 events at the now closed Big House Brewery in Albany,NY. [http://www.wamc.org WAMC] , the local NPR affiliate, sponsored the events which were organized (loosely) by Tim McEachern.

2000 event

The 2000 event was a major production, organized with the help of Susan Kaup, Chris O'Brien and innumerable volunteers. There were the network guys from Nortel who wired the event, some defunct gamesite that gave $500 for the Quake tournament winner, a bunch of people who kept the network humming. And the guy who did the T-shirt and font, who's name is lost to history...

The event began Friday night, with a swap meet / social event at the Modern Lounge in Boston's Landsdowne Street nightclub district. Drink tickets were offered at the door, and the DJ played computer-themed music (e.g. "It's All About The Pentiums"). Attendees brought suitable "geek" items to swap, from blank CD-Rs, to software on floppies, to RAM chips, to memorabilia from other computer-oriented events.

On Saturday, the main event occurred at the Castle, where admission was free. The middle of the floor held the "Email Garden", comprising about a dozen tables with PCs running Red Hat Linux, in a wired LAN network and providing email, Web, and general Internet access. At the front of the hall was a stage, which hosted a number of invited guests, including Rob Malda of Slashdot, Eric S. Raymond, the video game cover band Everyone. The stage was also host to the final round of a Quake III tournament, held in a back room, displayed on the stage's projection screen, as well as the final round of "Stump the Geek", a geek trivia contest.

Aside from the main events, the main floor had a lounge area with inflatable furniture, a bouncy cage, free play classic arcade games, and a few computer workstations displaying live webcam feeds of "satellite" Festivals in remote locations. A live Shoutcast feed was also provided of the Boston event. A poll for "greatest geek hero" was also held; the official winner was Alan Turing, though one attendee reports the real winner was Hannibal Lecter [http://everything.blockstackers.com/index.pl?node_id=475132] . Writers like Robin "roblimo" Miller, and Jack Bryar covered the event with differing mixes of amusement and bewilderment.

According to Science/AAAS magazine, 2,000 people attended; though the open-door free admission made an official count impossible. But we like to think it was around 4,000...

Corporate sponsors

*VA Linux (now SourceForge, Inc.)
*Andover.net ( now OSTG, part of SourceForge)
*SwitcHouse (now Nintari)
*Addison-Wesley

peakers

*Alex Pentland
*Rob Malda
*Keith Dawson, editor of "Tasty Bits from the Technology Front"
*Eric S. Raymond
*"The Cluetrain Manifesto" authors Christopher Locke & David Weinberger
*Michele D. Metts of [http://www.customchat.com CustomChat]
*Jeffrey Zeldman
*Dave Green & Danny O'Brien of UK based [http://www.ntk.net Need To Know]

Jon Katz was slated to appear with Malda but missed his flight. He blamed his dog...

Musical acts

*Upbeat Depression
*Everyone
*DJ Toby
*Ojamoj
*Splashdown

Other

*Stump the Geek Trivia Contest
*Nerf fights

Other attendees

John F. X. Sundman attended the Festival, handing out copies of his novel, "Acts of the Apostles" (ISBN 1-929752-13-X)

Other events

The 2000 event is widely referred to as the "first annual" event, although McEachern organized at least one previous event named Geek Pride Festival (and/or Geek Pride Day) at a bar in Albany, New York. Some sources refer to the Boston event as the "third" annual.

McEachern planned another event to take place later the same year in San Francisco, but was never realized.

External links

* [http://www.geekpride.org Official website (defunct)]
* [http://lists.netisland.net/archives/plug/plug-2000-03/msg00255.html Event schedule posted to Philadelphia Linux Users Group mailing list] (the Boston event is noted as the "3rd annual")
* [http://impressive.net/people/gerald/2000/04/01/geekfest.html Event photos taken by Gerald Oskoboiny]
* [http://everything.blockstackers.com/index.pl?node_id=475132 Geek Pride Festival] at Everything2
* [http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/03/29/1644228 Geek Pride Hits Boston This Weekend] , "Slashdot", March 29, 2000
* [http://www.sciencemag.org/content/vol288/issue5464/r-samples.dtl Celebrating Nerddom] , "Science AAAS", April 14, 2000
* [http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0NEW/is_2000_March_15/ai_60124309 Andover.Net press release] , March 15, 2000
* [http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/jan2000/gee2000330001087.htm Show your Geek Pride!] at Geek.com
* [http://www.sooz.com/2005/03/29/about-sooz-part-ii/ About Sooz] , biography of organizer Susan Kaup
* [http://www.cio.com/archive/070100/tl_greek.html Be There and Be Square] , "CIO (magazine) TrendLines", July 1, 2000
* [http://archives.cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/04/04/proud.geeks.idg/index.html We're geeks and we're proud] , CNN, April 4, 2000