The first event of the second season of Ignite is in the bag. Our first outside of the Children’s Museum, we opted to move a few feet down the road to the Conrad Centre.

So how’d it go? Really it’s all a bit of a blur. Pull together some amazing people and set them loose on stage. It’s barely contained chaos, a loosey-goosey, anything goes event that is as much about the audience as it is the speakers. The speakers provide a framework that facilitates a brief community where ideas ricochet all over the place spilling out over the net via Twitter. The audience is just as invested as the speakers are. They’re more than willing to meet them half way and forgive them their foibles, hiccups and nervousness. It’s this awesome singular entity that congeals for a few hours with every Ignite. Awesomesauce

As organizers we’re seeing the presentations for the first time along with the rest of the audience. We’ve little more to go on than a written brief, often no more than a germ of an idea sent weeks prior to the event. I get to see the slides beforehand and based on that try to create some semblance of order and balance. Who expected the moving nod to an autistic brother in Christina Moulton’s: Why the iPad won’t fail or the breakneck flurry of Mike Shanks awesome Beer Mile presentation or Linda Carson “who went to art school so you don’t have to” slice of vanitas.

I love this modest community event where Building Schools in Africa can sit alongside Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse. Where you can talk about running barefoot, for political office, or the next Beer Mile. More importantly I’d love to see something come of all this. Nothing grand. I hope someone, newly discovering the Conrad Centre, decides to check out a show, or maybe takes in some roller derby or visit the dump landfill. Maybe some of you will decide you have something you’d like to share and be a speaker for our next Ignite.

Regardless I’m glad you came out.

Around the Web: Speaker Alexander Millar’s account of his talk “Born to Run” Sean Puckett is back with some fantastic photos of the evening. Audiophonik Phil Downey offers his take on the event (and again in part 2.) And don’t forget speaker @Brydon and his offer to follow up his amazing talk by building several keg fridges.