By Donna Deeney

The organisers of CultureTECH have said the four-day festival went far beyond their wildest expectations. The numbers who attended the plethora of events celebrating the best in digital entertainment, art and games reached levels the organisers didn’t dare dream of, creating a huge boost to the tourism economy of Londonderry. The festival culminated in the announcement that a new digital link has been forged between Derry and London which will see the formation of 100 new companies, establishing Derry as Northern Ireland’s technology hub. Duke Special headlined the events organised on Saturday which saw around 10,000 people pass through the Guildhall Square venue over the course of the day, while hundreds more attended events in the Millennium Forum and the Craft Village. Mark Nagurski, from Digital Derry, said next year’s event will be bigger and better. “We have been completely blown away but the success of the festival and we already have an eye on next year,” he said. “There will be things from this year’s festival that we will want to build on and tweak, however, we plan that next year, the festival will be more entertaining, bigger and better. “This was our first year and it was successful beyond our hopes. What was so impressive is the people who turned up were not all computer geeks as some people might imagine. “We had kids of three and four trying out games, we had kids of 11 or 12 wanting to find out about computer programming but we also had people in their 80s coming to events as well. “One of the more bizarre things for me was seeing Sir Nick Kenyon, director of the Barbican dancing to Japanese Pop Stars at the Nerve Centre but the festival was meant to be fun.” Read more: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/northern-ireland/culturetech-digital-festival-a-massive-hit-for-derry-16206853.html#ixzz25d9yBK71

For the first time in its 50-year history the New York Film Festival has created a Midnight Movies sidebar that will celebrate genre films, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The three chosen films to be screened during the festival, which starts on Sept. 28 and runs through Oct. 14 at Lincoln Center, are “The Bay” by Barry Levinson, about a deadly parasite outbreak; Takeshi Kitano’s yakuza action film “Outrage Beyond” (with Beat Takeshi, above); and Peter Strickland’s film within a film, “Berberian Sound Studio.” The center also said Friday that it would host a two-day conference, “NYFF Convergence,” with panels and workshops devoted to transmedia, a form of storytelling that uses multiple digital platforms. It is to be held Sept. 29 and 30 at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center.

MASON – The streets surrounding the Ingham County Courthouse in downtown Mason were rocking Saturday afternoon as the second day of the Sun Dried Music Fest kicked into high gear.

The admission-free event, now in its third year, features a variety of musical acts from Mason and the surrounding communities. It is sponsored by local businesses and the Mason Downtown Development Authority.

The festival opened with a performance from the Fullhouse Band Friday from 7 to 11 p.m. On Saturday, non-stop musical acts were scheduled on two stages from 1 to 11:30 p.m.

The event has grown each year and is likely to draw as many as 10,000 people this weekend, according to Mason Mayor Leon Clark, the event coordinator.

“Every year we add a little bit to enhance the whole thing,” Clark said. “We try to make it as family-friendly as possible.

“The highlight is the music. It’s a music festival and we try to appeal to everybody’s taste. We have blues. We have rock. We have folk and bluegrass. We have music for young and old – all kinds of music.”

This year’s festival also included food vendors, crafters, a magic show, kids’ games, kiddy rides, dancing and an adult beverage tent.

Early Saturday afternoon, festival-goers sat under shady trees near the courthouse as the music filled the streets. From 1:30 to 2:30 p.m., the Squid Band played classic-rock tunes on the Main Stage at the corner of Maple and Jefferson streets.

As soon as the Squid Band completed its set, the crowd turned its attention to nearby Stage Two, where 16-year-old Taylor Fernandez of Grand Ledge belted out Adele’s Rolling in the Deep, as well as several original songs from her new CD.

Photo by Larry HookAvon Bomb performs a Cee Lo Green tune on the Main Stage at the Sun Dried Music Fest on Saturday.

When Fernandez finished, Avon Bomb took the Main Stage and performed Cee Lo Green’s Forget You to snare the crowd’s attention.

Spectators said they were enjoying the festivities.

“My wife (Judy Franklin) is playing in a band called Unlimited and they kicked off Stage Two here today,” said Leslie resident Brian Cowan. “We’ve always been into music so we like to be around it all the time.

“This is a great little festival here. It gives a lot of local talent a chance to come out and show their stuff.”

Photo by Larry HookGale Winegar of Mason holds her 10-month-old granddaughter Lainey as she enjoys the Sun Dried Music Fest with friend Beata Gailitis of Mason.

Beata Gailitis of Mason was sharing a blanket with a friend on the courthouse lawn enjoying the sounds.

“I like the variety of music, I like the people, I like the sun,” Gailitis said. “I love the courthouse. People can sit on the courthouse lawn, just listen and just come and go as they want. And it’s free.”

The festival concludes tonight from 10:30 to 11:30 on the Main Stage with the rock band, Showdown.

BRIGHTON DIGITAL FESTIVAL 2012
1 – 30 September 2012

http://2012.brightondigitalfestival.co.uk

http://www.lighthouse.org.uk/programme/brighton-digital-festival-2012

“Lighthouse are delighted to be at the heart of Brighton Digital Festival 2012.  The festival is a celebration of digital culture featuring a whole month of exhibitions, performances, meet-ups, workshops and outdoor events that run alongside Brighton’s iconic digital design conferences.  It is run by members of Brighton’s arts and digital communities, and administered by Wired Sussex in association with Lighthouse.

“Marking out Brighton as a major destination for digital culture, the festival this year includes digital visionaries like Matt Webb (Berg), Ben Hammersley, Hannah Donovan (This Is My Jam), and Alice Taylor (Makielab), digital artists such as David Blandy, Luke Jerram, and Seb Lee Delisle, science pioneers such as Kevin Warwick and James Burke, science fiction legends Brian Aldiss, Warren Ellis and Jeff Noon, and cutting edge digital thinkers and makers such as Leila Johnston, Anab Jain (Superflux), and Tom Armitage (Hide & Seek).

“They’re among over 50 well-known names giving talks in the first week alone.  Team that up with over 100 exhibitions, performances, meet-ups, workshops, and the UK’s fastest growing Maker Faire, and you’ve got one of the most intriguing digital festivals in Europe.

“Lighthouse’s own 24 projects for the festival explore where art meets technology. Highlights include:

ODYSSEYS BY DAVID BLANDY
1 – 23 September, Phoenix Brighton

http://www.lighthouse.org.uk/programme/david-blandy-odysseys

“David Blandy is a contemporary artist based in Brighton and London who uses video, performance, digital technology, animation and comics to investigate the form and content of the popular culture that surrounds us.  Odysseys is a major exhibition of his work and his largest monographic show to date. It features recent works including, Anjin 1600 (2012) and Child of the Atom (2010), which draw on the visual language of Japanese anime to tell deeply personal cross-cultural stories, plus collection of works which have arisen out of Blandy’s deep interest in game culture, including Duels and Dualities (2011) Soul of the Lakes (2005) and Samurai Story Part 2 (2008).

IMPROVING REALITY 2012
6 September, Pavilion Theatre

http://www.lighthouse.org.uk/programme/improving-reality-2012

“A half-day conference which playfully and critically looks at how designers, artists, and makers are using various technologies to shift our perceptions of reality. It features features graphic novelist, Warren Ellis, art and science luminary, Luke Jerram, digital innovators Usman Haque, Anab Jain and Leila Johnston, We Make Money Not Art’s, Regine Debatty, Rhizome’s Joanne McNeil, Rebekka Kill and more.
Expect presentations of artworks inspired by science, speculative stories, radical designs, unlikely inventions, and a few surprises.
The conference is followed by an evening panel session featuring some of the most prominent names in speculative fiction, including science-fiction legend, Brian Aldiss and Jeff Noon.

ARTIST TALK BY DAVID BLANDY
1 September, Phoenix Brighton

http://www.lighthouse.org.uk/programme/artist-talk-david-blandy

“To contextualise his exhibition Odysseys David Blandy will be giving a talk about his practice.   Blandy creates work that can be simultaneously humorous and philosophical, ironic and deeply heartfelt. Both playful and poignant, Blandy’s works ask us to analyse the images and stories that surround us, the games we play, and the films we watch. He has exhibited widely, including shows at The Baltic, Gateshead; the Liverpool Biennial; Turner Contemporary, Margate; Spike Island, Bristol; and Platform China Project Space, Beijing. His work is distributed by LUX, and he is represented by Seventeen Gallery in London.

PIXEL PYROS BY SEB LEE DELISLE
2 September, Jubilee Square

http://www.lighthouse.org.uk/programme/pixelpyros-by-seb-lee-delisle

“A stunning outdoor interactive performance by artist and creative coder, Seb Lee Delisle.

WORKSHOPS IN SCHOOLS
18 – 25 September

http://www.lighthouse.org.uk/programme/schools-workshop-with-natalia-buckley

“Creative technologist Natalia Buckley will be inspiring the digital artists and designers of the future in a series of coding and hacking workshops at Varndean High School and Brighton Aldridge Community Academy.

“Plus there’s much more from Brighton’s Mini Maker Faire, screenings of much-loved anime classics at the Duke of Yorks cinema, a hackday for young people, a gaming tournament, hands-on workshops in creative coding, and a primer on how streaming media is changing culture.  Our full programme is online here: http://www.lighthouse.org.uk/programme/brighton-digital-festival-2012

“Brighton Digital Festival is a celebration of digital culture. It is run by members of Brighton’s arts and digital communities, administered by Wired Sussex in association with Lighthouse and supported by Arts Council England.”

CONTACT

For more information:
Lighthouse
Address: 28 Kensington Street, Brighton, BN1 4AJ, UK
Tel: +44 1273 647197
Email: info@lighthouse.org.uk

http://www.lighthouse.org.uk

1. Information on prizes and how to enter form part of these conditions of entry.

2. The Promoter is Eeevent Hub Limited

3. The promotion commences at 1pm on Friday 24 August 2012 and entries need to be received by 5pm on Monday 27 August 2012 and posted on the CultureTECH page on Hubb.it.

4. Entrants must be at least 18 years old to enter the promotion. 

5.To enter the promotion, entrants must answer the following question “In 140 characters or less, tell us what you are looking forward to most at CultureTECH”.

6.  Entrants must submit the entry form by Posting their answer on the CultureTECH Page on Hubb.it (hubb.it/events/culturetech)

7. The Comment with the most “likes” on the CultureTECH Page on Hubb.it will receive 1 pass for the CultureTECH Festival. Voting will be open until 12pm on Tuesday 28 August 2012 and the winner will be contacted by 5pm on the same day.

8.  Winner will be required to submit a review of the CultureTECH festival on the Hubb.it Website.

9.  In the event of a tie break the promoters will chose their favourite comment from those with the most votes.

We’re pleased to announce that SeedUps are the official sponsors of the Hubb.it launch party which will take place on Friday, 31 August 2012 as part of the inaugural CultureTECH Festival. SeedUps is a crowd funding platform connecting tech startups with investors; to date there’s over £5 

We’re pleased to announce that SeedUps are the official sponsors of the Hubb.it launch party which will take place on Friday, 31 August 2012 as part of the inaugural CultureTECH Festival. SeedUps is a crowd funding platform connecting tech startups with investors; to date there’s over £50 million in startup capital funding available. It’s free for both those needing funding and those wanting to invest to join SeedUps. Their sponsorship continues the company’s ethos of supporting local Northern Ireland entrepreneurs, given their Founder & CEO Michael Faulkner was one of the judges who awarded Hubb.it third place at last year’s Digital  Derry SeedComp, which gave us the funding we needed to start progressing it from an idea into a reality.

Find out more about SeedUps here and come along to our launch party if you’d like to speak to the guys in person. Catherine and I would like to say a massive thanks to all the team at SeedUps for their continued support.

Read more about the Hubb.it journey and our launch party below.

All female Irish Start-up launches at CultureTECH Festival

Hubb.it is the global event community. It caters for events with a music, arts or digital focus, reflecting the increasing trend for festivals and conferences such as SXSW in Austin, CMJ in New York and CultureTECH whose schedules incorporate all three of these themes. Catherine and Breda came up with the idea for Hubb.it during SXSW in 2010 after realising they’d both encountered the same time consuming issues when planning their attendance at that year’s conference.

Catherine explains:

“We’d each spent a significant amount of time researching and planning our attendance at SXSW, including suitable accommodation, how to get around the city, where to eat as a vegetarian in the very non-veggie state of Texas and the best way to get the most out of the event from a business opportunity; the main reason we were both there. All of this planning left less time to focus on the best ways to get the most out of SXSW from a business perspective; the main reason we were both there.”

Breda continues:

“We just thought it shouldn’t be this hard? We started talking about possible solutions and kept coming back to this idea of one central hub pulling in all the information people usually need to plan their event attendance plus facilitating networking opportunities with fellow event goers.”

We’re pleased to announce that SeedUps are the official sponsors of the Hubb.it launch party which will take place on Friday, 31 August 2012 as part of the inaugural CultureTECH Festival. SeedUps is a crowd funding platform connecting tech startups with investors; to date they’ve totalled over £50Million in start-up capital funding. It’s free for both those needing funding and those wanting to invest to join SeedUps. Their sponsorship continues the company’s ethos of supporting local Northern Ireland entrepreneurs, given their Founder & CEO Michael Faulkner was one of the judges who awarded Hubb.it third place at last year’s Digital  Derry SeedComp, which gave us the funding we needed to start progressing it from an idea into a reality.

Find out more about SeedUps here and come along to our launch party if you’d like to speak to the guys in person. Catherine and I would like to say a massive thanks to all the team at SeedUps for their continued support.

Read more about the Hubb.it journey and our launch party below.

All female Irish Start-up launches at CultureTECH Festival

Hubb.it is the global event community. It caters for events with a music, arts or digital focus, reflecting the increasing trend for festivals and conferences such as SXSW in Austin, CMJ in New York and CultureTECH whose schedules incorporate all three of these themes. Catherine and Breda came up with the idea for Hubb.it during SXSW in 2010 after realising they’d both encountered the same time consuming issues when planning their attendance at that year’s conference.

Catherine explains:

“We’d each spent a significant amount of time researching and planning our attendance at SXSW, including suitable accommodation, how to get around the city, where to eat as a vegetarian in the very non-veggie state of Texas and the best way to get the most out of the event from a business opportunity; the main reason we were both there. All of this planning left less time to focus on the best ways to get the most out of SXSW from a business perspective; the main reason we were both there.”

Breda continues:

“We just thought it shouldn’t be this hard? We started talking about possible solutions and kept coming back to this idea of one central hub pulling in all the information people usually need to plan their event attendance plus facilitating networking opportunities with fellow event goers.”

Inspired by the entrepreneurial spirit very much in the air during SXSW the girls began fleshing out the idea for what is now Hubb.it. They successfully pitched the idea just a couple of months later at Digital Derry’s SeedComp; in front of judges including Facebook’s Global Director of Operations, Colm Long. Since then, they have worked relentlessly to bring Hubb.it to market with Breda explaining how they refined the idea into an independent niche community; a model whose success can already be seen in platforms such as Instagram and Pinterest.

“Our research showed that Hubb.it’s functionality is of particular benefit to events with a more independent ethos like IndieTracks in Derbyshire and Green Man Festival in Wales; also the type of events we ourselves are fans of. The organisers of these events are dedicated to putting together a talented but not necessarily commercially well known line-up. They put credibility over high revenues which make people more loyal to attending their event each year. When events start to forget their original ethos it doesn’t always bode well for their success as seen recently in the failure of this year’s much expanded BLOC festival.”

When asked what value Hubb.it offers independent event organisers Breda answers:

“Firstly it opens up their festival or conference to a global audience not always possible with the limited marketing budget these events have. Secondly, given the overwhelming amount of planning that goes into putting these events together, organisers don’t have as much time as they’d like to connect with their attendees; Hubb.it provides a way for them to have direct contact with their attendees. Finally Hubb.it saves organisers the headache of trying to encourage people to provide feedback about their events. Instead using our straight-forward review functionality, attendees can rate various aspects of the event within the community itself. We can then provide organisers with an easily digestible download of this feedback.”

She also expands on how giving attendees a voice is vital to the Hubb.it community.

“We’ve already seen with the success of sites like TripAdvisor that people are now willing to rate their experiences in an open way; particularly when it hasn’t been a positive one. Hubb.it is about giving people the same ability to rate their event experience as they have when rating their hotel experience. But we’ve also taken this a step forward and allow them to connect with other passionate event goers and have conversations about these events without the noise of other social networks.”

Hubb.it focus on the whole event process such as planning where to stay and how to get there is well timed given the rise in numbers of the “festival tourist” i.e. those willing to travel abroad for events. This has been brought about by the cheaper ticket prices for events in places like Spain, Poland and Berlin over UK based events with the guaranteed sunshine meaning people no longer have to choose between their annual holiday or attending a festival; going abroad they get both and Hubb.it helps them get to the more fun aspects of this holiday a lot quicker.

That the girls are on to something is supported by their success in securing funding to bring the Hubb.it idea to life with the team now also expanding to include two more talented Irish females in the form of Marketing & Business Development Consultant Lynn Jennings and Content & Community Contributor Ann-Marie Duffin.

Catherine explains why they have chosen CultureTECH for their launch.

“Mark Nagurski, the organiser of CultureTECH has been extremely supportive in helping us get Hubb.it off the ground and therefore we were keen to be involved. Being able to launch at such a high calibre event is a great opportunity for us to promote Hubb.it to an expected 10,000 attendees. It was also important for us to acknowledge the great business ideas outside of our own which are being thought up in Derry and the exciting future this offers the city.”

Find out more by visiting http://Hubb.it and join the community.

You’re invited to attend the officical Hubb.it launch party which takes place on Friday, 31 August 2012 in The Craft Village, Shipquay Street, Derry.

Notes to Editors

Hubb.it

Hubb.it, is the global event community. It caters for events with an independent ethos whose schedules contain a music, arts or digital focus. Hubb.it allows event goers to rate and review their event experience, share their top tips and connect with other event goers via one central hub. It provides event organisers with the opportunity to promote their event to their target market, engage with their attendees and gain an easily digestible download of feedback relating to their event.

The beta site is now live at http://Hubb.it

CultureTECH

CultureTECH is a four day festival of digital culture, uber cool music and technology taking place in Derry, N. Ireland Aug 29th-1 September 2012.

Posted by Breda Doherty (Co-Founder, Hubb.it)

We’re pleased to announce that SeedUps are the official sponsors of the Hubb.it launch party which will take place on Friday, 31 August 2012 as part of the inaugural CultureTECH Festival. SeedUps is a crowd funding platform connecting tech startups with investors; to date they’ve totalled over £50Million in start-up capital funding. It’s free for both those needing funding and those wanting to invest to join SeedUps. Their sponsorship continues the company’s ethos of supporting local Northern Ireland entrepreneurs, given their Founder & CEO Michael Faulkner was one of the judges who awarded Hubb.it third place at last year’s Digital  Derry SeedComp, which gave us the funding we needed to start progressing it from an idea into a reality.

Find out more about SeedUps here and come along to our launch party if you’d like to speak to the guys team in person. Catherine and I would like to say a massive thanks to all the team at SeedUps for their continued support.

All female Irish Start-up launches at CultureTECH Festival

Hubb.it is the global event community. It caters for events with a music, arts or digital focus, reflecting the increasing trend for festivals and conferences such as SXSW in Austin, CMJ in New York and CultureTECH whose schedules incorporate all three of these themes. Catherine and Breda came up with the idea for Hubb.it during SXSW in 2010 after realising they’d both encountered the same time consuming issues when planning their attendance at that year’s conference.

Catherine explains:

“We’d each spent a significant amount of time researching and planning our attendance at SXSW, including suitable accommodation, how to get around the city, where to eat as a vegetarian in the very non-veggie state of Texas and the best way to get the most out of the event from a business opportunity; the main reason we were both there. All of this planning left less time to focus on the best ways to get the most out of SXSW from a business perspective; the main reason we were both there.”

Breda continues:

“We just thought it shouldn’t be this hard? We started talking about possible solutions and kept coming back to this idea of one central hub pulling in all the information people usually need to plan their event attendance plus facilitating networking opportunities with fellow event goers.”

Inspired by the entrepreneurial spirit very much in the air during SXSW the girls began fleshing out the idea for what is now Hubb.it. They successfully pitched the idea just a couple of months later at Digital Derry’s SeedComp; in front of judges including Facebook’s Global Director of Operations, Colm Long. Since then, they have worked relentlessly to bring Hubb.it to market with Breda explaining how they refined the idea into an independent niche community; a model whose success can already be seen in platforms such as Instagram and Pinterest.

“Our research showed that Hubb.it’s functionality is of particular benefit to events with a more independent ethos like IndieTracks in Derbyshire and Green Man Festival in Wales; also the type of events we ourselves are fans of. The organisers of these events are dedicated to putting together a talented but not necessarily commercially well known line-up. They put credibility over high revenues which make people more loyal to attending their event each year. When events start to forget their original ethos it doesn’t always bode well for their success as seen recently in the failure of this year’s much expanded BLOC festival.”

When asked what value Hubb.it offers independent event organisers Breda answers:

“Firstly it opens up their festival or conference to a global audience not always possible with the limited marketing budget these events have. Secondly, given the overwhelming amount of planning that goes into putting these events together, organisers don’t have as much time as they’d like to connect with their attendees; Hubb.it provides a way for them to have direct contact with their attendees. Finally Hubb.it saves organisers the headache of trying to encourage people to provide feedback about their events. Instead using our straight-forward review functionality, attendees can rate various aspects of the event within the community itself. We can then provide organisers with an easily digestible download of this feedback.”

She also expands on how giving attendees a voice is vital to the Hubb.it community.

“We’ve already seen with the success of sites like TripAdvisor that people are now willing to rate their experiences in an open way; particularly when it hasn’t been a positive one. Hubb.it is about giving people the same ability to rate their event experience as they have when rating their hotel experience. But we’ve also taken this a step forward and allow them to connect with other passionate event goers and have conversations about these events without the noise of other social networks.”

Hubb.it focus on the whole event process such as planning where to stay and how to get there is well timed given the rise in numbers of the “festival tourist” i.e. those willing to travel abroad for events. This has been brought about by the cheaper ticket prices for events in places like Spain, Poland and Berlin over UK based events with the guaranteed sunshine meaning people no longer have to choose between their annual holiday or attending a festival; going abroad they get both and Hubb.it helps them get to the more fun aspects of this holiday a lot quicker.

That the girls are on to something is supported by their success in securing funding to bring the Hubb.it idea to life with the team now also expanding to include two more talented Irish females in the form of Marketing & Business Development Consultant Lynn Jennings and Content & Community Contributor Ann-Marie Duffin.

Catherine explains why they have chosen CultureTECH for their launch.

“Mark Nagurski, the organiser of CultureTECH has been extremely supportive in helping us get Hubb.it off the ground and therefore we were keen to be involved. Being able to launch at such a high calibre event is a great opportunity for us to promote Hubb.it to an expected 10,000 attendees. It was also important for us to acknowledge the great business ideas outside of our own which are being thought up in Derry and the exciting future this offers the city.”

Find out more by visiting http://Hubb.it and join the community.

You’re invited to attend the officical Hubb.it launch party which takes place on Friday, 31 August 2012 in The Craft Village, Shipquay Street, Derry.

Notes to Editors

Hubb.it

Hubb.it, is the global event community. It caters for events with an independent ethos whose schedules contain a music, arts or digital focus. Hubb.it allows event goers to rate and review their event experience, share their top tips and connect with other event goers via one central hub. It provides event organisers with the opportunity to promote their event to their target market, engage with their attendees and gain an easily digestible download of feedback relating to their event.

The beta site is now live at http://Hubb.it

CultureTECH

CultureTECH is a four day festival of digital culture, uber cool music and technology taking place in Derry, N. Ireland Aug 29th-1 September 2012.

Posted by Breda Doherty (Co-Founder, Hubb.it)

We’re pleased to announce that SeedUps are the official sponsors of the Hubb.it launch party which will take place on Friday, 31 August 2012 as part of the inaugural CultureTECH Festival. SeedUps is a crowd funding platform connecting tech startups with investors; to date they’ve totalled over £50Million in start-up capital funding. It’s free for both those needing funding and those wanting to invest to join SeedUps. Their sponsorship continues the company’s ethos of supporting local Northern Ireland entrepreneurs, given their Founder & CEO Michael Faulkner was one of the judges who awarded Hubb.it third place at last year’s Digital  Derry SeedComp, which gave us the funding we needed to start progressing it from an idea into a reality.

Find out more about SeedUps here and come along to our launch party if you’d like to speak to the guys team in person. Catherine and I would like to say a massive thanks to all the team at SeedUps for their continued support.

All female Irish Start-up launches at CultureTECH Festival

Hubb.it is the global event community. It caters for events with a music, arts or digital focus, reflecting the increasing trend for festivals and conferences such as SXSW in Austin, CMJ in New York and CultureTECH whose schedules incorporate all three of these themes. Catherine and Breda came up with the idea for Hubb.it during SXSW in 2010 after realising they’d both encountered the same time consuming issues when planning their attendance at that year’s conference.

Catherine explains:

“We’d each spent a significant amount of time researching and planning our attendance at SXSW, including suitable accommodation, how to get around the city, where to eat as a vegetarian in the very non-veggie state of Texas and the best way to get the most out of the event from a business opportunity; the main reason we were both there. All of this planning left less time to focus on the best ways to get the most out of SXSW from a business perspective; the main reason we were both there.”

Breda continues:

“We just thought it shouldn’t be this hard? We started talking about possible solutions and kept coming back to this idea of one central hub pulling in all the information people usually need to plan their event attendance plus facilitating networking opportunities with fellow event goers.”

Inspired by the entrepreneurial spirit very much in the air during SXSW the girls began fleshing out the idea for what is now Hubb.it. They successfully pitched the idea just a couple of months later at Digital Derry’s SeedComp; in front of judges including Facebook’s Global Director of Operations, Colm Long. Since then, they have worked relentlessly to bring Hubb.it to market with Breda explaining how they refined the idea into an independent niche community; a model whose success can already be seen in platforms such as Instagram and Pinterest.

“Our research showed that Hubb.it’s functionality is of particular benefit to events with a more independent ethos like IndieTracks in Derbyshire and Green Man Festival in Wales; also the type of events we ourselves are fans of. The organisers of these events are dedicated to putting together a talented but not necessarily commercially well known line-up. They put credibility over high revenues which make people more loyal to attending their event each year. When events start to forget their original ethos it doesn’t always bode well for their success as seen recently in the failure of this year’s much expanded BLOC festival.”

When asked what value Hubb.it offers independent event organisers Breda answers:

“Firstly it opens up their festival or conference to a global audience not always possible with the limited marketing budget these events have. Secondly, given the overwhelming amount of planning that goes into putting these events together, organisers don’t have as much time as they’d like to connect with their attendees; Hubb.it provides a way for them to have direct contact with their attendees. Finally Hubb.it saves organisers the headache of trying to encourage people to provide feedback about their events. Instead using our straight-forward review functionality, attendees can rate various aspects of the event within the community itself. We can then provide organisers with an easily digestible download of this feedback.”

She also expands on how giving attendees a voice is vital to the Hubb.it community.

“We’ve already seen with the success of sites like TripAdvisor that people are now willing to rate their experiences in an open way; particularly when it hasn’t been a positive one. Hubb.it is about giving people the same ability to rate their event experience as they have when rating their hotel experience. But we’ve also taken this a step forward and allow them to connect with other passionate event goers and have conversations about these events without the noise of other social networks.”

Hubb.it focus on the whole event process such as planning where to stay and how to get there is well timed given the rise in numbers of the “festival tourist” i.e. those willing to travel abroad for events. This has been brought about by the cheaper ticket prices for events in places like Spain, Poland and Berlin over UK based events with the guaranteed sunshine meaning people no longer have to choose between their annual holiday or attending a festival; going abroad they get both and Hubb.it helps them get to the more fun aspects of this holiday a lot quicker.

That the girls are on to something is supported by their success in securing funding to bring the Hubb.it idea to life with the team now also expanding to include two more talented Irish females in the form of Marketing & Business Development Consultant Lynn Jennings and Content & Community Contributor Ann-Marie Duffin.

Catherine explains why they have chosen CultureTECH for their launch.

“Mark Nagurski, the organiser of CultureTECH has been extremely supportive in helping us get Hubb.it off the ground and therefore we were keen to be involved. Being able to launch at such a high calibre event is a great opportunity for us to promote Hubb.it to an expected 10,000 attendees. It was also important for us to acknowledge the great business ideas outside of our own which are being thought up in Derry and the exciting future this offers the city.”

Find out more by visiting http://Hubb.it and join the community.

You’re invited to attend the officical Hubb.it launch party which takes place on Friday, 31 August 2012 in The Craft Village, Shipquay Street, Derry.

Notes to Editors

Hubb.it

Hubb.it, is the global event community. It caters for events with an independent ethos whose schedules contain a music, arts or digital focus. Hubb.it allows event goers to rate and review their event experience, share their top tips and connect with other event goers via one central hub. It provides event organisers with the opportunity to promote their event to their target market, engage with their attendees and gain an easily digestible download of feedback relating to their event.

The beta site is now live at http://Hubb.it

CultureTECH

CultureTECH is a four day festival of digital culture, uber cool music and technology taking place in Derry, N. Ireland Aug 29th-1 September 2012.

Posted by Breda Doherty (Co-Founder, Hubb.it)