Ignite Portland 6 is coming up on July 16. We’ve announced the talk lineup, and lots of you have been asking when we were going to give word on when our free tickets to the event would become available. So here’s the deal:
You won’t need a ticket to attend Ignite Portland 6. Just come on down, and walk right in.
What? No tickets? I know, right? The thing is, given the fact that all 500 or so tickets for Ignite Portland 5 were claimed in about three and a half minutes, it just didn’t make sense to keep doing things that way. Pretty soon, you would need the ability to *go back in time* to snag a ticket fast enough. 
So we’re going to try it this way.
“But what about crowding?”, you ask. “The Bagdad can only hold so many people”, right? That’s why we’re happy to announce that you can also attend Ignite Portland 6 at the Back Stage bar, which is literally behind the screen of the Bagdad. Back Stage is a very cool space (the ceiling is seven stories tall!), and increases our total capacity by a couple hundred people. The show will be streamed live onto the various screens around Back Stage (courtesy of Joe and Blaze Streaming Media), plus you can hang out, order a drink or a burger, and still be a part of Ignite Portland 6. More people will be able to watch Ignite Portland 6 than any previous iteration.
We struggled to find a solution to the ticket scarcity problem that would be the most fair to everyone, and while this setup isn’t perfect, we think it will work out just fine. We’ve always held a couple hundred “walk-in” general admission seats, and for the last couple of Ignites, haven’t had to turn anyone away. We understand that now you don’t have a way to “guarantee” yourself a seat at Ignite, but we’re confident that if you come down, you’ll be able to get a seat either in the Bagdad or at Back Stage.
And since the question is bound to come up, selected speakers get a reserved seat (obviously :-)) plus one for a guest, and sponsors get a few reserved seats, but for everyone else, no matter how much we like you (and we like you all very, very much!), even if you make an individual donation, we can’t guarantee you a seat. There’s just no fair way for us to manage that. We hope you understand, and that we can still be friends. If you have any questions about how things are going to work, feel free to post a comment here.
We’ll open the doors at 5:30 PM (the show starts at 7 PM), and hustle everyone in to the Bagdad as quickly as we can for as long as we can (until we hit fire code, basically). Back Stage opens at 5PM. Come down early, grab a drink or a burger, and hang out with your friends. Everything is on track to make this the best Ignite Portland ever. All we’re missing is you!
Responses