Tags: maker

This is my favourite week of the year. It’s the week when Brighton bursts into life as the its month-long Digital Festival kicks off.

Already this week, we’ve had the Dots conference and three days of Reasons To Be Creative, where designers and makers show their work. And this afternoon Lighthouse are running their annual Improving Reality event.

But the best is yet to come. Tomorrow’s the big day: dConstruct 2014. I’ve been preparing for this day for so long now, it’s going to be very weird when it’s over. I must remember to sit back, relax and enjoy the day. I remember how fast the day whizzed by last year. I suspect that tomorrow’s proceedings might display equal levels of time dilation—I’m excited to see every single talk.

Even when dConstruct is done, the Brighton festivities will continue. I’ll be at Indie Web Camp here at 68 Middle Street on Saturday on Sunday. Also on Saturday, there’s the brilliant Maker Faire, and when the sun goes down, Brighton will be treated to Seb’s latest project which features frickin’ lasers!

This is my favourite week of the year.

dConstruct is now exactly five weeks away. To say that I am excited would be quite an understatement.

I am insanely excited about this year’s dConstruct. I think the line-up is quite something—a non-stop parade of fantastic speakers. And the speakers themselves are equally excited, spurred on by the excellent company they’ll be keeping. Seriously, this is going to be an amazing day.

I’m also excited about all the other events happening around dConstruct as part of the Brighton Digital Festival.

The first week of September will kick off with the Reasons To Be Creative conference: three days of three tracks of all sorts of design and code.

Reasons finishes on Wednesday, September 4th, which is the same day that Seb will be running his fantastic CreativeJS workshop. I took this workshop myself a few months back and I can’t recommend it highly enough—you’ll come away feeling like you’re superpowered. Seb is a great teacher. And don’t be put off by the whiff of coding; this workshop is for everyone. In fact, I think designers with very little experience of code would be best served by it.

There are still some tickets available for Seb’s workshop and remember that booking onto the workshop also gets a complementary pass to the dConstruct conference day as well.

In between Seb’s workshop and the dConstruct conference proper, there’s Improving Reality, that wonderful conference on technology and culture curated by Lighthouse in Brighton. I’ve really, really enjoyed the last two years so I’m going to be there again this time ‘round on Thursday, September 5th.

Then right after dConstruct, there’s a weekend of good stuff happening over the Saturday and Sunday:

• Brighton Mini Maker Faire — a day of interactive exhibitions on the Saturday followed by a workshops and panels on the Sunday. There’ll be talks and panels on the Saturday too, including a panel moderated by Maggie Philbin!
• The Big Sussex Market will be running all weekend as part of the Brighton and Hove Food Festival. This will be on New Road, right by the Brighton Dome where Maker Faire will be happening.
• Indie Web Camp will also be running all weekend, just round the corner at Lighthouse. This little gathering is something very dear to my heart. I was talking about just the other day on the Breaking Development podcast.

Phew! That’s quite a full dance card.

If you’ve got a ticket for dConstruct, remember that as per the terms and conditions, if you need to cancel or transfer the ticket you’ve only got one more week to do so.

If you haven’t got a ticket for dConstruct, what are you waiting for?

See you in Brighton in September.

If you’re coming to Brighton for dConstruct, there are two Map Tales I’d like to draw your attention to.

The first is a map of all the places where you can discounts with your dConstruct badge—very handy for lunch and dinner on the day of the conference.

The second is one I put together a while back of recommended Brighton coffee establishments.

And of course, while you’re in town, be sure to check out all the events that are going on as part of the Brighton Digital Festival; at the very least, make sure you check out the Maker Faire that’s on the day after dConstruct—it’s going to be fantastic!

Oh, and I almost forgot: the Big Sussex Market will also be going on the day after dConstruct, all along New Road and Jubilee Square.

With quality, local produce firmly at its heart, the Big Sussex Market features over 80 stalls of growers, producers and restaurants.

While I was compering dConstruct, I interspersed the between-talk banter with information about some of the events taking place under the banner of the Brighton Digital Festival. It’s a busy month, to put it mildly.

The day after dConstruct, Brighton played host to a Mini Maker Faire in the foyer of the Brighton Dome. I went along in the morning to check it out and MY HEAD ASPLODE!

It was splendid. So much creativity, so much fun and so many lovingly-crafted gadgets, all under one roof. It was immensely popular too. The crowds didn’t let up all day. I hope that the next time there’s a Maker Faire in Brighton—‘cause it should definitely happen again—that it can take place in a bigger venue (like the Corn Exchange) so that we call all geek out in comfort together.

I commend Emily and all of the other organisers. Top job, hardware hackers, top job.