I’m really impressed with the excellent response from this Yibble mate, lets see what LR can pull together for next year. Oh and I can’t make the Diggnation thing in London :(

The dialogue here has been very productive, and certainly has changed by perception from when I originally posted. I may well be back for LRL ‘08, I may even bring my Heckler-Stick.

There’s also the possibility that I may participate in the IRC chan’ before the event, just so I can put faces to nicks.

Thanks.

I wasn’t able to attend ‘05 or ‘06, but I really, really enjoyed 2007. I felt it was very much a case of “you get out what you put in”.

The mythTV stand really helped me out though and I look forward to putting together a mythTV box based on their advice over the coming month.

Nope, I didn’t do a Lightbulb talk, to tell the truth. I’d not really prepared to go drumming-up support for various projects I have bouncing around my head. As I commented on earlier, I’d probably have been more inclined to take the mic-stand if this had been later on in the day, after I’d mulled over the presentations.

If I attend next year, it will be the UK show. I don’t think my boss would sign-off on a trip to San Fran’… Still, we can always hope.

If I have any firmer ideas, I’ll submit them to the forums you’ve suggested. Thanks for taking the time to enter the dialogue (both Stuart and mrben) in order to address an attendees experience.

The lightbulb talks and pre-submission: yes, I broadly agree with the suggestion that we should have had a few lined up in advance. We didn’t, at least partially because we didn’t have time after getting all the named speakers together, and partially because when we suggest that people should volunteer for talks very few people actually do so, sadly. Without wishing to look like too much of a dick, did you do a lightbulb talk? If not, why not? That section could have been better if there were better talks (although I personally enjoyed most of the ones that were done, especially the GP2X one).

On the ideas front, do, please, come up with more. We do our level best to think up things that are new and interesting (hence the gong-a-thong, the hour of power, etc), so when you come up with ideas, wing them off to the show email address or suggest them on the forums (forums.lugradio.org).

Matt Smith: did you ask any of the women *at* LRL whether they enjoyed the show? Maybe not. Not to say that there’s not more to be done, but, again, if you feel we could be doing it better, it’s harder but more productive to try and help us rather than merely carp and criticise.

Oh, and: hope to see you in San Francisco, yibble. We’ll brush up our knob gags especially. :)

Thank you for your constructive attitude. I’m pleased that I’ve managed to convey my stance on not wanting to change the podcast, but simply help make it, and the event more accessible. At least the podcast doesn’t normally cover folks shitting themselves in public.

Thank you for correcting my perception of the heckling incident. I’ll definitely re-consider my stance, and may well attend next year’s event… Preferably the Californ-I-A instance. So long as I can get a t-shirt with the slogan, “LugRadio: it’s an endless stream of sub-par nob-jokesâ€? :)

I will see what I can do in advance of next years event to try and work at ways to be more inclusive. I don’t think I can do much about the way the live recording goes - it’s probably always going to be geared towards the long-term listenership, and the online community. But in terms of the rest of the event, I’m sure we can work out some good ways to be more inclusive.

WRT the debate - from memory none of the big heckling was from the “inner circle” that I could identify. Certainly the Hans Reiser dude was not someone I recognised. I do agree with you about pre-submitted questions, and I will have a discussion with the presenters about changing that for next year.