All hail the Pioneers: Day 1

This is the first part of a 3-day series. To see all posts in the series, see: https://codebuffet.co/nl/category/all-hail-the-pioneers/

Here I am, sitting in the train, slowly descending back into civilization as I traveled from station to station, away from the Hamlet’s of the Netherlands, back into the cities. I’m looking outside, thinking about how I would write everything I’ve been trough in just 3 days. I think I got it now. So let’s begin…

First, I want to emphasize what this post is not. To all developers, investors, inventors, entrepreneurs and anyone else who has read some of my posts: This is not one of those posts. This is not a new project that I’m super stoked about, or a game that I love to explain every bit about, no, this is a story about how I got into a 3-day, medium-sized invite-only meetup called Permanent Beta Festival, set in the Netherlands, in a camping, in the middle of the woods.

I also do not represent The Permanent Beta organization in any way in this post, all the quotes, people and situations explained in this post, are the view of a single first-time visitor and volunteer of the Permanent Beta Festival.

This is also not a review. It’s not a compliment, it’s not critique either. Why not? Because when people read a review about something, they set, if they like the experience the reviewer had, expectations, mostly similar to the ones of the reviewer. If those expectations are not met, then the experience of the readers of the review is overall not very positive. Not because it isn’t, but their mind is locked on that one experience.

With our story it’s different. It doesn’t matter to me what your experience would be, just as it shouldn’t matter to you what my experience was.
Also reviews are typically about services like hotels, restaurants, and other places where there is typically a centralized ‘service’ that will make your experience as good as possible, either by having waiters, staff, and other people ready to serve you. They make sure you have fun. If you are not satisfied you go to the management and explain your complaints.

In the Permanent Beta Festival, everyone makes sure everyone else has fun. Imagine a place in the middle of the woods where there are tons of people who are like you, but total different interests. This is something I didn’t think was possible, but it was. I spoke with around 20 different people and around 3 of them were actually working in a tech-related field. So what did I and the other 17 people have in common? We were all, very, very crazy, out of the box thinkers. Every single one of them, including me, that was something that made me feel very comfortable in a very short time.

So let’s go back, before I was in the Permanent Beta Festival. How did it get started? I was working at home on a freelance project, when the phone rang, and I picked it up. It was a good friend of mine asking me if I could arrive earlier. Sure, I thought, because I expected the festival to start at Sept 27 for some reason. But then he asked, “Ok, can you come soon?”.

“…..”.

Alright. You know where this is going. I forgot I got my tickets for Saturday and Sunday at Sept 10.
I didn’t want to skip this event as I heard many great stories myself as well. So I moved my appointments, arranged a lift and left home nearly immediately, on the same day. It’s not a fun thing to do, but you should try it, it makes your brain strong to adapt to quick changes.

And away I went! Riding in a camper with a girl I just met at that moment. Around 3 hours later we were at the spot. At that time it was around 22:00 I think.
I immediately was astonished by the lights and the environment. It didn’t take me a long time to start my first conversation. It was about how to imitate a bagpipe. That’s all you need to know 🙂

What’s next

Tomorrow I will continue on the second part of the series. I hope you enjoy the read. Don’t be afraid to leave any comments that help me improve my writing. See you next day!

Links:

Permanent Beta Homepage: http://www.permanentbeta.nl/