About 5 weeks ago when I was doing the dishes it suddenly popped up to me. "Steemit is great, how cool would it be if many steemians from all over the world would meet in real life". And so the idea of SteemFest (working title SteemCon) was born.

^{Tbh the whole Steemit launch and vibe reminded me of the early days of Twitter, where you got to know so many new people in such short time, but only online, and when we finally met at a meetup it was epic. I still have many friends and acquaintances from that period.}

This idea of a global "conference" to enable steemians to meetup kept 'bugging' me and I started talking to some people from the community on Steemit.chat how they would feel about this... Overall the response was: "Great! when can i book my flight?" So i knew I hit somewhat of a "want" here...

I really like the local meetups and they really add value to the Steem ecosystem but for SteemFest the "vision" is to bring many steemians from all over the world together to nurture new IRL relationships, learn from each other and just have great fun.

Since this idea was "kinda big" from the get go I wanted to have official endorsement by Steemit HQ in the USA so I reached out to Hive account@ned on Steemit.chat with the following:

Ned, I'm dabbling with the idea of having some kind of bigger get-together... Like a conference but not too corporate but try to embrace the Steemit frontpage feel in a day full of diverse content... Sort of Ted X meets Pecha Kucha etc. Best of confs (imho) is to meet other people and most fun I recall was meeting twitter people for the first time IRL... Amsterdam could be a fitting place, but I am biased... but might be nice to cut ties from home for a few days 🙂 Have you guys thought about something like this already? Before coding I studied Hospitality Management, worked at a festival for a couple of years, and have afterwards organized a couple of hackathons (organizing 1 at the moment too). Think about it...!

And yes, he was very enthusiastic about the idea. So from there my thoughts where: Wow, this can just really happen!

And so it will!
Really proud to pre-announce this! So you can save the date for:

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SteemFest 2016

11 - 12 - 13 November
Amsterdam, The Netherlands

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(Yessss Hive account@cass is officially aboard ofcourse :D with great designs!)

What will it be all about?

Steemit is different compared to other 'Blockchains'. You might have heard the term "Blogging is the new mining", and yes Steemit is a great mix of diverse thinkers, technophiles, libertarians, crypto enthusiasts and creative people in general.

The conference global program schedule will be as followed:

Friday 11 November (Day 0):

People fly/travel to Amsterdam. Night drinks in the official conference hotel (package deal will be announced asap) Volkshotel.nl

Saturday 12 November (Day 1):

Plenary Conference. In the morning we go by boats from the Volkshotel to the Conference Venue in the city centre. The conference will be as diverse as Steemit's Frontpage. 20 minute pecha kucha / Ted X style presentations. Part of the program is already set, and the rest will be open for your suggestion (soon more on that). In the second room workshops, and well have Lunch, Dinner and a Night party (with Steem Djs) in this place too.

Note: This day will be livestreamed and recorded, so no one will miss out (well,... Amsterdam of course), even if you somehow can't make it!

Sunday 13 November (Day 3):

Unconference day, called the "Red Light Mashup" where we are able to enjoy a "late sunday breakfast" in the hotel (until noon) and go on a longer boat tour along the canals to the oldest part of Amsterdam, which won't be that much about XXX in on a sunday during daytime and you can 'hook'up with fellow steemians as a diverse set of activities is planned nearby for you to pick: Guided tours, climb the Old Church tower, visit a weird attic museum on the canals, follow a workshop, grab a coffee, explore side street surprises and we have a base hangout (looking at a former arcade hall at the moment), all within the vicinity of one-other. This lazy sunday afternoon is followed by a closing dinner and drinks in the Volkshotel.

Costs $$$ and Wins. How does 1000 Steem Power sound to you?

So yes: drinks, lunches, dinners, open bars, conference venues that must cost a shitload right?

The idea of this event is also to show the power of Steemit and next to support from Steemit HQ, quite some whales are supporting SteemFest and therefore help lower the ticket price a great bunch for SteemFest to make it as accessible as possible for any Steemian to join.

Very soon (this week) we will communicate the conference ticket price. We are even working on a 'Steem Travel Reimbursement Fund' where you can apply to get part of your trip paid by this fund, based on miles travelled!

What we can already say is that Steemit HQ has this supercool (!!!) offer for all Steemians showing up (with a ticket (available soon)) in Amsterdam: 1000 SteemPower onto your account!

We have also bargained a great package deal for the Volkshotel for the given dates and more info will be published on that soon. This will be the official hotel and key events (opening drinks, closing dinner, boat departures) will happen from here, so its great to book a room there. Soon more info. We have blocked 130 rooms for the conference, so that would mean the hotel would be practically owned by Steem people. LOL.

What can you do now already?

1. Save 11-12-13 November 2016 in your agenda and book a flight / train / start arranging visas!
2. Follow Hive account@steemfest the official account for SteemFest
3. Signup via SteemFest.com

Wait with booking a hotel until we announce our hotel package and ticket price.

Soon to be published on Hive account@steemfest

• Conference Ticket price (trying to make it 1/4 of the costprice per person)
• Hotel package details for the official conference venue "Volkshotel" (130 rooms blocked)
• Infos on the Travel Reimbursement Fund to claim back (part of your) travel costs
• First names and 'call for program ideas'

Financially I can say is that this event will be run of Hive account@steemfest which will turn into a multisignature account very soon (before sponsor money will be put on the account). More info on that soon, but you can already check Hive account@xeroc's recent posts if you want to learn more about multi-signature steem accounts.

All proceedings from this post will be transferred to the Hive account@steemfest account and help fund SteemFest 1