Gnomedex is making a comeback.
Chris Pirillo’s tech conference, which started back in 2001 and was on a recent hiatus, will make its return in Seattle later this year.
Pirillo, the popular vlogger and founder of LockerGnome, detailed why he’s bringing back Gnomedex in a blog post. He noted how the event is not so much a “conference” anymore.
“It’s more like a fair, a festival, a truly fun/interact-with-everyone-there kind of event that I’ve never seen happen for geeks and nerds like me,” he wrote.
Pirillo started Gnomedex in his home state of Iowa 14 years ago as a way to bring together geeks from all over to share ideas and learn about emerging technologies. He later brought the conference to Seattle in 2005 and after hosting the event with Seattle Interactive Conference in 2011, Pirillo decided to shut it down.
But now it’s back on for 2015. Pirillo compared the new Gnomedex as a “VloggerFair for geeky and nerdy social video influencers (YouTube and the like) and their respective communities.” In 2013, Pirillo launched VloggerFair was a way to gather top vloggers from around the Internet, and anyone else involved with or interested in the trend of video diaries.
Pirillo said he’s lining up sponsors to help fund Gnomedex. Speakers, prices (“not much more than $99”), and specific dates (“most likely and quite possibly on Halloween weekend”) have yet to be announced. You can check this page for updates.
Here’s more from Pirillo’s vision of the new Gnomedex:
Gnomedex isn’t just about connecting with leading tech youtubers or twitchers, but retro gamers, Minecrafters, makers, cosplayers (HALLOWEEN WEEKEND?!), comic book enthusiasts, pop culture tastemakers, and the like. I would love to see a crossover of these various communities because rarely, if ever, are any one of us squarely in one camp. We usually love geeking out over SO MANY THINGS – and we don’t get to meet and spend time with those people we love to watch online for hours on end at any other event. I don’t yet know which of these microcommunities wants Gnomedex more, but I REALLY want to bring them all together for a Medici effect.
