Flash On The Beach 2010 (Brighton, UK)

Flash On The Beach (FOTB) has got to be one of the sure contenders for the best Flash conference in Europe, perhaps even worldwide. It has such a social, fun and inspiring vibe with both speakers and attendees heaping it with praise once they’ve regained a clear head…

I first heard of FOTB in 2007, sadly too late to attend but having mates continuously rave about what I had missed I made sure I was first on the list for a ticket for 2008. It was simply mind blowing. Erik Natkze blew everyone away with his untouchable work which was followed by James Paterson with animated willies and FREE beer in the inspiration session! Does it get any better? No, and this was just the first day.

Thanks to the stupendous quantities of beer from the night before I think most who attended Grant Skinner’s session on the second day would have wished he’d used more a standard form of page transition, it certainly made me feel ill (as awesome as it was). The second inspiration session with Robert Hodgin featured even more FREE beer whilst he stunned everyone with some gorgeous visualizers. The after party was then quite a blur.

Kieth Peters was unfortunate enough to have the Zombie 9am slot on the last day, it was however definitely worth attending. The star of the day however for me was by a mile Andre Michelle who was on fire with his incredible “Audio Tool”, inspiring stuff!

To top this all off I then won a t-shirt at the very end of the conference, awesome!

Last year (2009) John opened Flash On The Beach with the El Mariachis which got everyone in the mood for what was simply an awesome conference. I also managed to hook up with some guys I used to skate with years ago as well as run into loads of people I had met the year before from all over Europe, awesome!

After the keynote I again went to see Kieth Peters in what was a great session for game development followed up by an inspiring session by Papervision3D Founder Carlos Ulloa. That nights inspiration session was led by Joel Gethin Lewis and was awesome, such a great speaker and such a nice bloke. Its needless to say there was again FREE beer.

I just about managed to drag myself up for 9am the next morning for the much anticipated Elevator Pitch which was a great chance to see upcoming and new talent and ended up being a great laugh and very popular! Jer Thorp then gave the most inspiring session of the day on developing visualizations using data from the most unlikely of sources. After the inspiration session which was buzzing with the usual FREE beer we made our way out on the town flashing our FOTB badges at every club we could, eventually resulting in VIP!! Oh Yeah, free entry and drinks!! I know it was unintentional but nice one John!

The final day was back to back awesomeness that started with Mario Klingemann and some Uber Math and webcam play that resulting in him Rick Rolling himself, great session! This was then followed up with Seb Lee Delisle with a session on his love for Tweening Engines and a lot of fun with glow sticks, amazing fun! After the Jam Throwdown which is always top notch Jared Ficklin, who is a absolute dude, blew us away in with his sound and fire visualization session, totally awesome. Joshua Davis then rounded the conference up with an awesome and very animated session on some of his incredible pieces of work.

Adam and I were then totally brokenhearted after John gave every “FOTB FlipFlop” competition entry a free ticket for FOTB 2010!! The competition was to get a pic with your FOTB FlipFlop somewhere legendary. We’d tried to get a photo in a sex shop but they wouldn’t let us… maybe this was a good thing?? Ah well, next year maybe…

This year i’ve got The Whole Enchilada so will be going down a day early for Julian Dolce’s Mobile Development Session, its going to be awesome! Flash On The Beach 2010 Tickets have been on sale for a while now and already sold out of the first three price bands and workshops… get in there quick and see you there!

Update: Just booked myself into The Brighton Seafront Travelodge, which I’ve stayed at the previous two times, for £160 (Sat-Thur), £77 of which was the Saturday night!