TAM London 2010 impressions

zooterkin

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zooterkin
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I think this deserves a new thread, rather than getting lost in one or more of the TAM London threads.

I'll come back and add more detailed impressions later when I have more time, but my overall impression was that it was very good. The venue was much better than last year, and closer to the setup for TAM8 (though it takes way too long to get everyone out of the main room and up two flights of stairs for lunch).

Not surprisingly, it feels much too short, and the lack of somewhere like the Del Mar Bar on site where you can meet a lot of other attendees, without taking out a second mortgage for the drinks, is a shame (and likely hard to fix in a London venue).

On to the good points; generally very well organised, and an excellent selection of speakers (except for a couple of panellists, they were all different from last year, I think, which I see as a good thing). I thought all the speakers were worth listening to, and entertaining; for me, Alan Moore was one of the highlights; I can understand why some might question his inclusion, but I think a good case could be made for that. Should he return (and I heard him say he would be very happy to, if invited), I think maybe an exploration of his thoughts about magick and snake god worship would be very enlightening, as well as a discussion of psychogeography. The Saturday night entertainment was good (well, the Q&A dragged a bit), including our very own Soapy Sam. ;)
 
i'm still in London, but heading already for the airport. I'll also post more when I get home, but I thought the whole weekend was great, and the speakers top notch. The best part is that I don't feel too bad about going back to "reality", since that's where I've been the whole weekend. :D
 
I should, of course, have mentioned the pleasure of meeting old acquaintances and making new ones. :)

Still hoping to find the time to write more while the memories are still fresh, but, for those not on twitter, David Allen Green (aka Jack of London) summarises the problem:
Am finding it very difficult to write about #TAMLondon. I type and cliches appear. I type again, and the text screams "FANBOY" back at me.
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Enjoyed all of it. Some speakers more than others perhaps, but those that I enjoyed less, others will have enjoyed more, and vice versa, I'm sure. I missed Marcus Chown completely, thanks to failure to wake up, and I'm sure I would have enjoyed that, so that's a shame. Better venue on balance than last year, although I much preferred the amphitheatre layout that allows for better vision.

On the last night I had room service of a meal and pint at the Hilton, and I'll now have to speak to my bank manager about it. As I said in the other thread, I'm impressed by Soapy Sam's performance, but have to wonder whether the magician had shagged his girlfriend or something.
 
I really enjoyed it.
It was my first TAM. One of the main reasons I loved it so much was that I got to meet a lot of people who I've been talking to on the internet for so long.
Excellent to finally meet them, and more people who were following me.
I particularly enjoyed the Amateur Transplants and Tim Minchin's performances.
It was also awesome to meet the speakers and get photos with them :P
 
I'm told there were 1200 tickets sold, and 1100 showed up. The crowd was a little thinner Sunday afternoon, I suspect because people left early to get trains or flights. Although the majority was probably British, there was a huge number of other Europeans, as well as a fair American contingent. Didn't notice any Chileans this year, though.
 
Rat said:
I'm told there were 1200 tickets sold, and 1100 showed up.
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Oh, wow, didn't hear it was that high. I saw comments elsewhere saying that it didn't sell out, and I thought that 1000 was the limit, but I'd be glad to be proved wrong on that. Given that it was a big jump in size from last year, and I don't think it was heavily advertised, I'd say there was still room for growth, or, at the least, stability, given the right speakers next year.
 
To settle on numbers, would someone like to get counting?
IMG_1241.jpg
 
So, my impressions, in no particular order:

There was definitely a crowd there, and many from the Continent (yay!).

I experienced a weird coincidence: the first person I ever met the day before TAM is the only person from the Forum that I already knew personally, Soapy Sam. It was great!

I got to meet zooterkin (hi!) and, briefly, Geek Goddess and TCS.

I also saw Rebecca without realizing it was her (sorry I didn't say anything!)

Randi slowed my watch down Geller-style, and we talked about parrots.

I saw Richard Dawkins come into the hotel and out again no less than three times, looking confused.

I met Alan Moore!

I also discovered Amateur Transplants, which were great, and Marcus Chown, who was great.

I also listened to a buch of other people I didn't know but who gave great talks and made some good points.

I disagreed with some of the points made by some people, and I enjoyed disagreeing and thinking about why I do.

I met Alan Moore!

Dawkins's talk was thoughtful and inspiring, but his "Science is the new sex" is what will be remembered about it, I think.

I drank too much bad coffee and clapped too much for my own good.

I was suprised by PZ Myers, because he comes off exactly as he does in his blog, and also completely different.

I met Alan Moore!

I now think that Richard Wiseman is the awesomest host alive. I think he was a bit puzzled by my enthusiastic thank you when I ambushed him at the end.

I was in awe by the power of a man with a voice like Hell's own bass band and a very sensible brain, who can say he worships a 2,000 year old snake puppet god and hold an audience of evil, evil skeptics in thrall for an hour while reading a poem, and get roaring applause after that. Yes, he's Alan Moore.

I was scared about the Alpha Course, and endlessly amused by Adam Rutheford's talk about it.

I discovered the coolness that is Andy Nyman and was impressed by Graham Lineham's quick wit.

A Swedish magician performed an extremely cool card trick in front of three of us in a pub.

I enjoyed myself very much.

And I met Alan Moore.
 
I found it to be excellent. Even better than last year. And I met lots of wonderful people.

But I do have to inform you all I'll sue anyone for libel who repeats the unfounded rumours we cheated our way to the win in the SitP TAM London pub-quiz. :mad:
 
I was going to sit down and post some more of the highlights for me, but Morwen has just covered nearly all of them!

Sitting with Randi on the Friday afternoon; luckily Morwen and Soapy Sam were there to make some intelligent conversation, while I was just sitting there mostly looking daft. We had the pleasure of the Amazing one's company for well over half an hour, and he told us about his interest in parrots, and a couple of stories of things that had happened to him, made Morwen's watch stop, and explained how solar powered globes work. Meanwhile PZ Myers and Professor Dawkins came and went around us.

In addition to those mentioned by Morwen (and, of course, Morwen herself and Soapy Sam, who were very agreeable companions for the conference), I also met OHP, Mojo, Brodski, Rat, deBergerac (who was the magician entertaining us over pub food on Sunday night), xinit and Sid Rodrigues (who now thinks I'm stalking him), and I saw exarch in the distance. A big thanks to OHP for tweeting that there was a place left on the tour of the Linnean society (and for organising the fringe events).

Thanks to Morwen, who got a book signed, I also got to speak to Alan Moore, who I know think is an even more wonderful human being than I did before. Of course, I just made some silly comment about missing editions of a comic I'd subscribed to back in the 80s that he'd been involved with.

Soapy Sam's 'assistance' with the mentalist act on the Saturday night was a priceless specimen of mild truculence, and a lesson to the magician not to force people up on stage who don't want to be there.

The pub quiz was great fun, though our team (me, OHP and Gareth from the Core cafe, where a load of skeptics had a great time on Friday night) inexplicably failed to win, despite knowing that the answer to one question was the Mongolian Death Worm.
 
zooterkin said:
Soapy Sam's 'assistance' with the mentalist act on the Saturday night was a priceless specimen of mild truculence, and a lesson to the magician not to force people up on stage who don't want to be there.
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Ha! Who was the magician?
 
Incidentally, deBergerac was the magician at the pub, and the trick he performed was very very impressive. And he's in the preliminary stages of organizing a skeptical convention in May 2012. It's still very early for it to be more than a good idea and enthusiasm, but I'm sure he wouldn't mind a shameless plug here, even if the website doesn't really exist as such yet.

Oh, and thanks to zooterkin, who took the pics that prove to my envious friends that I met Randi and Alan Moore!
 
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