Will I go to BlogCampSwitzerland2.0? Maybe not!

I love BarCamps, I love the people and I love the “Camposphere”. I’ve been on 7 *Camps across Europe and I haven’t regretted one. But now I am having big concerns on the second BlogCamp in Switzerland.

Maybe it is just me, but I miss the atmosphere I always had on the days before a BarCamp. Everyday I was more happy and couldn’t wait until it started. Not this time. The closer the day (Saturaday, October 20st) comes, the more I am thinking to cancel my participation. Maybe it is because it looks more like a sales pitch this time. For example, the live demo part:

• kooaba new and creative solutions for mobile blogging presented by Herbert Bay
• smaboo – Embedded Branding with Notebooks – The online platform where private persons are able to market themselves as media space, by Adrian Locher
• Anton Fessler, Dein Blog auf meinem Handy (sende audiop an 363) – warum es sich lohnt Geschriebenes mit Audio zu würzen [de]
• Wuala – Distributed online storage 2.0 – by Luzius Meisser (cofounder, engineer)
• the pianobakery – Worlds first media asset management system for the Mac presenting by Michael Ruepp

From the 7 available spots, 5 are taken by a company! Why are there no live demos of a great (free & open sourced) WordPress plugin? And even worse: Dominik Tarolli, one of the organizers, has a financial interest in one company from the above list.
Why not organize a DemoCamp where people are coming to see new services/softwares/products? This works great in Toronto and many other places.
Yes, I know. If I don’t care about the sessions I will not attend them. But this is just a feeling I have.

Same goes of course for some of the presentations. Example? The most negative feedback I’ve heard from BlogCampSwitzerland1 was the session about kyte.tv. People said the presenter was not very neutral or too little objectively. And just now the marketing person (d’oh) from kyte.tv registered and proposed a session on their product. Are you kidding me?

The other big bug that bites me: Why again at the ETH? I’ve already mentioned that after the two events there, but somehow other companies are just not ready to sponsor such an event. And with no sponsors, the ETH is quiet expensive. You have to pay for each seat, each beamer or bring your own.

When I started BarCampSwitzerland I was hoping for an event like the North Americans have. Take a look at this video from the first BarCampOrlando:

(source)

The Swiss IT scene really is … uhm lets say boring and not very active. There is a small group you always see on such events and I call them friends, but I would love to see more people, see what others are up to and hack.