The 2M08-crew did it again. Pulling off a fantastic and free multi-media event. 4 tracks, 30 speakers from all over the world, they’ve set a really high standard this year. It’s hard to predict what the limits for this a free event are. Anyway the crowd loved it.

We, from Indie Group sponsored the event for the first time. We’d set up a company booth with a showreel and also a webcam pong game. We are always looking for new people and talked to a lot of young and talented people.

Our game was titled do you have the balls? The winner from the pong game got a red Indie Group stress ball as a gadget.

Because I had to be at the IndieGroup booth, I haven’t been able to attend a lot of sessions. I saw the Adobe’s keynote by Serge Jespers and Jason Levine which was quite entertaining. We saw some stuff that maybe potentially someday will be or not be in the future release of an adobe product *ahum CS4 ahum*. It was fun.

At the last session of the day I attended the one from Rob Chiu (UK) who is an interactive designer (owns the ronin) . I wouldn’t miss this for the world, I even ignoredMario Klingemann’s session for Chiu’s (well actually I’d allready see his session or at least 50% of it on FOTB07). Sorry Mario, nice meeting you though Back to Rob’s session which I almost entirely spent just staring at the giant screens, amazed by his work. I saw his 07 showreel before, but with big screens and excellent sound it’s even more impressing then on a laptop. I totally respect this guy and I’m jealous he just does the things he likes to do and even makes a living out if it. The sound in his work is incredible, he works with great sound engineers and I love the way he puts a lot of emotion in simple structures and photos. Be sure to check out his website http://www.theronin.co.uk, and my favourite work: Things fall apart, you can download the clip from his site.

Multi-mania always ends with a famous awardshow. I don’t think this year’s was better then last year when they just had amazing speakers (FI from Sweden), but it came pretty close. Gunther Lamoot (a Belgian stand-up comedian) was the host and I know not everybody likes his style but I do very much. Respect, it’s not easy what he’s doing, he was able to make the audience lolling all over the place more than once. As for the guest speaker this year, Hoss Gifford from Glasgow Scotland, I liked the message he brought but I don’t know if everybody got it. It’s hard to focus on what he has to say because he has or ADHD or drunk to much before he got up or even when he was up

I love the simplicity of his work and I think Mr Gifford is a very smart man, but maybe he’s just not acting like one. If you have the chance to get to one of his sessions, you won’t be sorry afterwards. They are very very entertaining, but be careful to listen to the things he wants to teach you. I think they’re very valuable.

I was once again amazed by the professional organisation for this event and wanna thank Koen, Wouter, Klaus and the rest of the team for organizing the whole thing in our backyard (which is the lovely city of Kortrijk in the West-Flanders of Belgium). You all did a fantastic job. Congratulations from myself and from one of the very proud sponsors!