Who says you need to wait for the next big conference?

In true form of the emerging Australian Web community almost 200 Sydney based designers, developers, producers and all other web sorts packed into the CBD hotel for WebJam hosted by local developers Anson Parker and Lachlan Hardy.

I have to admit, I thought it would be an entertaining night as soon as I heard of it, but not as cool as it turned out to be.

Slightly resembling the 20/20 sessions in London the night consisted of 20 speakers speaking for 3 minutes at a time. The big difference is that the speakers were asked to get up and talk about anything that they have been developing, designing or are basically excited about and show it off to the crowd.

Crowd participation was rampant. The small venue and packed out crowd really meant you felt the excitement and occasional stress of the speakers as they tried to pack everything they could into such a small time frame. During Lachlan Hunts’ form validation demo I almost felt I was at a pantomime as everyone ooooh’d and aaaahhh’d over the pretty (albeit semantic and accessible) colours.

Highlights of my night included Charlie Brewers’ speedy explanation of News Labs, Lachlan Hunts’ crowd pleasing form validation demo, Mark Pesce nailing his presentation in about 2 minutes leaving us all with a minute just to let it all sink in and of course Dmitry Baranovskiys’ Dynamic Pie chart, man that was some cool pie chart action.

So small events are starting to really pick up and while they don’t replace the hype and eagerly awaited larger geek conferences, they are a good fix in between and a tonne of fun.

When’s the next one guys?