We’re helping to create the future at PICNIC ’08

PICNIC 08 Logo Back in 2006, a cross-media festival in Amsterdam called PICNIC ’06 caught the eye of our friend and cohort Sean C. Stacey. Billing itself as the “first ever annual event for people interested and involved in cross media content and technology in Europe, North America and Asia,” speakers included John de Mol, Philip Rosedale and Craig Newmark. It also included a presentation by the ARG IGDA SIG, who talked about their first published white paper. The conference was a smashing success, and plans were made for the following year’s festival.

In 2007, PICNIC ’07 expanded on the format of the previous year, incorporating nightly entertainment, partner events and a Green Challenge with their speaker presentations. Sir Richard Branson got involved with the Green Challenge, and visionaries such as Cory Doctorow, Walt Mossberg and Dennis Crowley delivered speeches and participated in discussion panels. Our man on the scene, Daniel van Gool, was especially impressed by a trio of speakers — Eduardo Dias, David Polinchock and Jeroen Mol, who collaborated on a presentation called “Augmented Reality for Advertisers.”

This brings us to 2008, and another installment of the popular cross-media festival. Things kick off on September 24th, and once again ARGNet is a proud media sponsor of the event. This year’s conference will feature a wide range of speakers which include Jyri EngEstrÃ¶m, a co-founder of social networking site Jaiku, Martin de Ronde of the Onebiggame charity, and Kara Swisher from AllThingsD.com, a tech and media web site. There are also special events planned for each day of the festival, such as book releases and breakfast sessions with speakers, and PICNIC Labs, which are “practical workshops that challenge you to re-imagine your business, develop new products and services, refine ideas and formats and come up with creative business concepts.” Daniel van Gool will once again attend the conference for ARGNet, and we’re looking forward to more of his stellar reporting and analysis.

You too can attend PICNIC ’08, and because you are such wonderful, loyal readers of this little news site, you get a discount! So, if you plan on being in the Westergasfabriek area of Amsterdam and want to save a few bucks on attendance costs, click the link below for details on how to register and to find out how to apply the discount code.

To register for the event, head on over to the Tickets section of the PICNIC Network web site. Ticket prices vary by package (see the web site), but the fine folks at PICNIC ’08 have secured a 10% discount for readers of the ARGNet news site. This applies to any ticket purchased online via the PICNIC website. To get your discount, simply enter the 10% discount code: 272036.

We hope that many of you can make the trip to PICNIC ’08, which is going to be an amazing experience for all that attend!

Previous PICNIC coverage:

2006
PICNIC ’06 Cross Media Week
PICNIC ’06 Cross Media Week Is Here!
PICNIC ’06, Day One: The IGDA Alternate Reality Gaming White Paper Presentation
PICNIC ’06, Day One: Cities as Digital Communities
PICNIC ’06, Day Two: The Creative Process at Pixar Studios
PICNIC ’06, Day Two: Conversations as a Source of Information
PICNIC ’06, Day Two: Empowered by Creativity
PICNIC ’06, Day Two: My Second Life
PICNIC ’06, Day Three: Life After the 30-second Spot
PICNIC ’06, Day Three: Creating New Markets