The place was great as there was plenty of rooms were lots of different things were happening.
As a blogger i follow alot of people on the Internet and a trend i seem to find is that a lot of bigger YouTubers are starting to not attend gatherings especially summer in the city as the growing popularity in YouTube has created a big issue with fandom and it has become more and more relevant over the past few years.Please wait and listen before you Lynch me for bringing this up, i think i raise a few good points so just carry on reading before you decide to attack me in the comments...
1. On several occasions including sitc 2012 people have been hurt because of fandom mobs swarming around big youtubers.
2. Police have had to be called to protect some of these bigger youtubers as some of these events have been a major health and safety disaster.
Here are two points for now, but let me tell you more about two incidents at summer in the city 2012:
The upstairs gig room were the entrance to the escape room for youtubers was full for people crowding the door trying to get a glimpse inside, and when anyone exited the room they were swarmed instantly and and security had to disperse the crowd. (this was one of the bad things about the gathering as i felt it limited the experience of the bigger youtubers to interact and get to meet the community properly.)
The other incident involved Jack and Finn being pinned to pillar while nearly 300 girls pushed and fought to get as close to them as possible, i understand you want to meet your favorite youtubers but you don't have to climb over people to get to them make a line and be sensible.
The fandom of YouTube:At last years event i had to leave to get some food and make a few phone calls and got caught in the 3 hour long lines to get back in and i felt that i lost out on so much opportunity to meet more content creators and the community as many of the people who went to the event only went for the fandom of there favorite youtubers. I know this for a fact as i was watching and listening to many people who were talking about how they only went to see their idols and others who were talking about how they felt that this fandom mentality cheated so many people out of the opportunity to create more content and create new collaborations as people could not get in to the event.
This whole problem has played on my mind since i found out about this years event was being ticketed as it could be a repeat of last year...
To clarify the situation i am not against fan girls and fan boys but in the long run if you are buying tickets to this years event to only go just to see that one YouTuber you watch/ love/ adore or stalk (pick the most relevant one that applies to you) and you don't get to see them and come away form the event unhappy just think about this:You bought a ticket that could have gone to someone who could have gone to the event, spent time meeting people, building collaborations, filming videos and creating new content and they will end up giving up trying to go to these events as they feel they can't get to meet the true youtube community over the fandom problem.
The problem with gatherings is that they have become a shadow of there former selves and we cant get back to the days of content creators just meeting up to work together and just meet up in a park,
I know have probable pissed so many people off with my comments above but i have had a few ideas about this years event:
1. Meeting room for meeting YouTubers and creating a safer environment were people can line up and wait to meet their favorite YouTubers.
2. Quiet room to get away from the crowds and to be able to talk without shouting
3. IT room were you could safely use a laptop and may be charge it up while you work could be useful.
4. Film Room with a green screen for content creators to film and work would be great addition.
5. More signs and posters with information about whats on and when (i missed out on a few things last year as some of the stuff was not as clear to were the things were)
I hope that this year will be better and i have a few ideas for some time lapse work and blogging while i am there. i hope to see as many people as possible this year and get to create some cool stuff.
Thanks for reading and supporting the blog.
