Charlie Taylor, in The Irish Times, writes:
For anyone hoping the organisers of the Web Summit might fail dismally in Lisbon and end up back in Dublin with their tails between their legs, think again.
The Web Summit is bigger than ever and the talk from attendees there this week was how well everything worked. Now in its second year in the Portuguese capital, the event has bedded down and has become what its organisers always really wanted it to be: an international conference.
In doing so, the Web Summit has certainly given up trying to retain an Irish identity. There may still be plenty of attendees and speakers from back home, and many of the crew involved in putting on the event are also from Ireland, but it has moved on.
…Overall, the Web Summit is a shiny, happy place and, while concerns over where tech might be leading us were being expressed, they were largely outweighed by one dreamer or another trying to sell you their latest “life-changing” solution.
FIGHT!
Web Summit moves on from Dublin roots as it matures in Lisbon (Charlie Taylor, The Irish Times)
Previously: How The Web Summit Was Lost
Ireland doesn’t have a conference venue for 60,000 people. Despite all the PR and staged fights with the gov, the ultimate truth is that they had to move to grow.
Should we build a venue that size? Maybe, but if you’ve ever been to the Lisbon conference district (built for an Expo 20 years ago at great cost) you’ll see its empty much of the year. To make a large venue worthwhile for Dublin we’d need to be attracting 20 Web Summit sized events per year. Not sure thats possible.
How much is a bog standard ticket again?
Nobody wished them to fail, people might think they’re w@nkers but no one wanted them to fail
+1
Reads like a PR not that piece :)
Why does the Irish Times think we care so much? These events are ten a penny in the U.S.
Yer man copies a formula, moves it elsewhere after afew years and makes a few quid. Fine.
Who da twinkle gives a poo poo?
because it was heavily State supported (EI/IDA) funded for the first few years of its existence. check damien mulley on web summit’s accounts.
http://www.mulley.net/2015/01/22/how-much-has-enterprise-ireland-spent-on-web-summit/
Wha’ da ffffffffffffffffff
ya codding me
here I’m going ta have to get a taste of all this grant money
between the Gate and their 850+ pa
and this once a year stuff
Christ, I’m in the wrong game althoght
gimme ideas lads
nothing too fancy now
how about that Frilly Things thing
Brilliant
it’s great to see EI back an internationally traded services winner for once.
that’s a bit b1tchie int’it
“For anyone hoping the organisers of the Web Summit might fail dismally in Lisbon and end up back in Dublin with their tails between their legs, think again.”
smirky and snide at the very least
So what’s it going to take to remedy this? Fill the RDS and we serenade Paddy with an acapella version of Chicago’s “Hard to say I’m sorry”? We can all Periscope it to him to demonstrate the sensational wiffy.
Also, just to fit us into the media’s template for dull and seemingly never-ending break-up stories, are we Wozniacki and Paddy is McIlroy?
At least it’s not quite as bad as the IRFU’s petulance at likely losing out on the RWC to South Africa.
The letter complaining about South African and saying how great Ireland is was cringe-making.
was reading that today on the Irish Times website and my biggest question was ‘why was Leo Varadker at the bid launch’? Then I remembered who and what Varadker is.
I’m delighted for Paddy and the crew on their success in Lisbon, which is proof positive that most of your commenters on this are a malign, distorted bunch of bedwetters, begrudgers and nihilists
BBOOOORRRIINNGGG…..
I forgot narcissist bridge-dwellers and troglodytes
Are you named after the S Club 7 song?
Tune.
I said, REACH *clap clap*
Of course.
Rather fond of “Don’t Stop Movin’ ” as well tbh
I’m coming out I want the world to know
The holy groove trinity
Don’t Stop Moving
Billie Jean
Bright Lights Big City
Same tempo, same baseline – it’s like every few years somebody discovers it and sells it to that days pop-kids…
also, I read that name as Reach For the Sitars and thought it was a Ravi Shankar/George Harrison duets album…
Reach for the Stars used to be Warden of Snort.
No he’s still here I bumped into him the other day.
You’re not serious? People have different usernames? Really?
And the hand-on-the-hip catty snowflake routine too