Funnily enough when we all came into the office this morning we planned to have a meeting to debrief but we all just went "did you see that guy's review on the forum?" "Yeah" "Yeah those were my thoughts too." LOL
RE: Audio
Yes, we should have prepared a backup. It was stupid of us to take what the venue said at face value (which was that the PA system was more than sufficient for the space, and that they would have someone there the whole day to handle it for us lol...), but we did and that was a mistake - we've certainly learned from it. This was just one of a few things that ended up being "not as advertised." We certainly have a lot more things to consider when we select a venue for next year.
RE: Food
We wanted to contract a bunch of foodtrucks to hang out in the parking lot all day to provide attendees with a variety of affordable options. Unfortunately the venue has clauses in their contracts with the on-site food vendors that do not allow this sort of thing. We were totally handcuffed by their policies here .Again this is going to be a consideration when we pick a venue for next time.
RE: Vendors and tech demos
The vendors that showed up and did so in such a big way are HEROES to me. We gave them very little time to plan this out, and despite that they were able to provide awesome and unique experiences for the community, and provide a TON of swag (as you said). With more time to plan this out I guarantee the vendors that showed up this year will be able to show off much more next year, and those that weren't able to attend are going to be kicking themselves now that they've seen how awesome the community made this event. We've already received a few emails from LARGE partners asking about next year
TL;DR we only had about two months to seriously plan this out (beyond "hey let's do a meetup that would be fun lol"), and this was our very first time doing a live event, meaning there will always be some sort of issues. We've learned a ton and we're very excited to implement what we've learned into the v2 . Next year you can definitely expect more brands, hopefully more tech to play with, bigger showcases, and better audio
Thanks for coming and glad to hear that you had an overall positive experience. Everyone on the team had a ton of fun (no matter how stressed out we were) - getting to engage with the community face-to-face is always really enjoyable as it's always such a positive experience. Glad we could mirror that!
I went to the event with two friends, so being able to talk to them definitely made it more enjoyable.
Couple things I'll note (though your review is completely fair)... I talked to Colton and he said that the centre claimed to have projection surfaces, but really didn't, so the team had to cobble something together (if I remember correctly). I'm not sure why they didn't have time to get a proper screen from somewhere, but it definitely wasn't planned. The audio was definitely rough though. I sat in the back row of chairs and that was enough to hear most of what was being said, but of course a better setup would be nice. Oh, and the backpack that Dennis threw wasn't his, it was intended to be given away but Dennis used it all day anyway (if I heard correctly, I was up front then).
I didn't play any of the video games either (besides 16k), but it was fun to talk with the team briefly (and get my toolkit signed) and just chill. I agree with your points for improvements and I would love to see more actual tech stuff next time, but I wasn't really expecting a whole lot besides a fun event run by LMG (meaning it probably goes wrong, but that's part of the fun). I'm looking forward to next year for sure.
I went to the event with two friends, so being able to talk to them definitely made it more enjoyable.
Couple things I'll note (though your review is completely fair)... I talked to Colton and he said that the centre claimed to have projection surfaces, but really didn't, so the team had to cobble something together (if I remember correctly). I'm not sure why they didn't have time to get a proper screen from somewhere, but it definitely wasn't planned. The audio was definitely rough though. I sat in the back row of chairs and that was enough to hear most of what was being said, but of course a better setup would be nice. Oh, and the backpack that Dennis threw wasn't his, it was intended to be given away but Dennis used it all day anyway (if I heard correctly, I was up front then).
I didn't play any of the video games either (besides 16k), but it was fun to talk with the team briefly (and get my toolkit signed) and just chill. I agree with your points for improvements and I would love to see more actual tech stuff next time, but I wasn't really expecting a whole lot besides a fun event run by LMG (meaning it probably goes wrong, but that's part of the fun). I'm looking forward to next year for sure.
So, this is my unbiased review (But what review isn't bias?) of the going on's of LTX 2017! For those who either couldn't, didn't go!
First some things about me: I've watched Linus's tech related video's since the time he was still working under NCIX, i'm not a major fan of LMG or Linus himself, i simply watch them because i work in web design, they are informative, tech related and i like especially nowadays on the WAN show how up-to date things are and the conversations of market and business that occur. Again, i'm not a major fan.
I decided to go alone because it was A. Saturday and i had nothing else better to do. B. I figured it'd be cool and i'de see some tech that's way out of my price point and C. I wanted stickers to throw on my case and D. (The big one) I WANTED TO SEE THE LAMBO! E. I might meet some tech-orient people.
Entering the event:
The event happened at Langley Events Centre in Langley, British Columbia. This was a 20 minute drive for me from Surrey, i showed up 5 minutes after the gate opened and the first thing before you entered... THE LAMBO! The MAIN reason i decided to come! It was sitting there, valiantly, in all of it's glory and it's ding on the left front of the bumper and the dirt inside on the floor mats! They just left it there open, the back, doors, everything was open and it didn't seem like a problem to hop in it and take a picture in. It was everything i expect and more.
Apon entering you got a single Raffle ticket for the end of the event to a HUGE AMOUNT OF STUFF THEY WERE GIVING AWAY!
Entering the event into the bowl/ice rink of the Events Centre was the joked about BALL IT! It was glorious, without any P in it, but perhaps some uncertain bodily fluids. When i seen this, i chuckled out loud and stared at it for a couple of moments.
To the left was a silent auction of various different items from the LMG facility and past videos / projects. The plasidip build they did, an SMG gun, two Barracuda HDD's, one dipped in oil in a previous video, another a 10TB, some of the fun things like the Linus Statuette they have had around that doesn't even really look like linus, and the RGB Shades they made in the past. You put your bid on a list to be paid at the end of the event.
To your right was a VR Booth with Luke overseeing it and a SICK desk next to it with Taran's video editing setup. (He was doing tutorials i believe.) and next to that was... Are you ready? THE 16K GAMING SETUP! With 16 panels! You could get in line and get a couple minutes on it playing some games, interesting stuff!
Past that was a Mouse Tossing booth (Free Geek) Just your average ball toss, but with MICE! It was Destructive and fun, if you got all the bottles you'de get a prize (Mice and broken plastic flying EVERYWHERE.)
An Asus CSGO Booth with setups for people to play csgo together. I was highly disappointed tho that Asus wasn't showcasing any of their products, just some ROG stickers and just setups for CSGO.
A Corsair Booth with some of their Keyboards, Mice and their glorious cases on display (LOTS OF RGB. DID I SAY RGB?)
A Zotac VR Booth (Single rig, didn't have ANY of they're products on display.)
A Razer booth, much like the Corsair Booth, just entirely focused on their mobile laptop / hybrid products, but with some Overwatch rigs (Razer laptops) for people to play on and a single VR setup. There was also a little table for people to make LMG related memes via photoshop, not sure what they actually did with those but people did so ALL DAY, many of them as i passed by looking, were quite entertaining.
An iFixit booth, they were selling their iFixit kits, and had plent of free swag. They were handing out their "Jimmy" tool for free, a tool you can use to jimmy open things with!
A BS Mods booth, they only had one of their builds on display unfortunately, but the rest of the booth was dedicated to tutorials on making Tubes for watercooling, you could even make your own curved tube!
A Geoguesser booth, sort of a casual thing where everybody would play Geoguesser.
A Scrapyard Wars tent / chill area with bean bag chairs you could chill in and watch some Scrapyard Wars related videos on a tiny crappy cloth vinyl screen.
The Lambo booth wasn't a booth, the Lambo was just outside (Probably a good thing.)
Hamster Ball Didn't happen, it was replaced with what seemed to be a bigger bungee race game (No rewards from what i understand, but it looked FUN.)
A jousting arena, it wasn't really "JOUSTING" like you might think, but a foam pole battle arena. (No rewards, but it looked FUN.)
A SUMO Game arena, pretty self explanatory (No rewards from what i gather, but again, looked FUN.)
The CASE TOSS! You threw cases that began full at the start of the event, furthest 5 throws of the day got free, SICK cases! Although, i think this was a bit unthought of because as the day went on, the cases that kept getting thrown got lighter and lighter (Cause things were flying off them like no tomorrow.) So the people who mostly threw cases near the end of the event ended up on the top 5, and they started taking the lighter built cases away (Because they broke sooner.) So only the heavy, sturdy cases survived and compressed their mass. Still, this was a highlight and was incredibly fun and destructive.
Although i think everybody was a little bit concerned as their were some moments where people almost got knocked out by flying cases that went out of bounds, notably at one moment a case at full force almost dropped on somebodies head, landing inches behind him. Funny, he didn't notice as he was sipping his coffee and didn't even realize i don't think.
The CASH GRAB Game. This was the only other way of getting more raffle tickets, basically you got in a wind chamber and tried grabbing raffle tickets flying all around you amongst fake money flying around. (Although half-way through if you asked the VIP area, they'd give you a couple free raffle tickets because they were supposed to get rid of them to avoid the raffle having too many non-owned ticket numbers.)
The line for this was super slow, everybody apparently got 15 seconds, but you'de be in this line for 20, 30 minutes. It was popular, but was the slowest moving line in the event. Honestly tho, i had the most fun with this not because of the raffle, but just how fun and frantic it was.
What i Did:
I wasn't very interested in the games, overwatch or CSGO as they aren't really my cup of tea. I went mostly for the manufacturer Booths, and to see some cool setups. The booths were quite bare of products to see, which was a little disappointing, as were my hopes of seeing cool system builds as there just wern't many at all at this event. I spent a good amount of my time at the event playing the cash grab, which i enjoyed, watching the team make video's on-site and throwing some mice and cases at the toss booths, i wasn't totally interested in the couple competitions they offered, but sorta still wanted to do for fun and there wasn't a lot of guidance on as to when competitions happened. There was supposedly a heatsink installation competition, a keycap swap competition and a couple others, but there wasn't a Itinerary or even paper event schedule at this event.
I would of liked to of competed in these things, but didn't really have any guidance for things. I enjoyed watching Taran edit video's however, and got in a big line apon arriving to meet Luke. (Probably the longest line at the entire event near the beginning.)
The only guidance was that their was some banner ads on the center's / sports bowl overhead display that rotated with the main Panel times. (Stage panel times.)
Before the panels, i met Luke and got a nice picture with him. Had a nice little chat, he's a very nice guy and was radiating at the event from start to finish going around chatting to just about everybody, near the start of the event Taran was going around doing the same, another really nice dude. Linus was doing much the same near the middle and ends of the event, another pretty swell guy. I ain't a huge fan as i said, so i kept the chat pretty short and let them enjoy their "Big Day." I probably had a short chat with everybody on the team, everybody was pretty high morale and really stoked to have everybody want to talk to them and be here at the event.
Later on i had a short chat with linus and met him after over half the panels, he's pretty cool and was exactly as he sort of is in his video's. I was actually pretty surprised that Luke and Dennis got most of the attention at the event.
Onto the Panels, another major reason i came.
Panels ( Stage ):
The first panel that started was a little rough... and by a little, really set the tone of the event which was a very casual, laid back, maybe even "Winged" tone. The first panel was an AMD Unboxing. Linus had audio issues from the start as they seemed to of been using a very underpowered P.A (I couldn't really see what they were running mix through, but it was BAD!) Your usual event panel stuff, a big welcoming, some back story of certain things. If you wern't in the first 3 rows (And there was some REALLY LIMITED SEATING ON THE FLOOR!) you couldn't hear a DANG WORD. The video / projectors at the event were also very bad quality, these cloth sort of projector sort of things you'de see in an office conference, but even then i've seen many better conference screens, you could see them, but they were bad... just.. really bad.
The first panel started with some audio issues, and a lot of people joking in the audience about the "Production Values" but, Linus and the crew were pretty good with actually conducting the panels, although during the first panel the camera team with their 100K+ value cameras were blocking pretty much half the rooms ability to actually see what Linus was unboxing, i'm a short guy and i can honestly say throughout the entirety of the unboxing i couldn't see a single thing other than linus and his face, not what he was working on as their wasn't any side video panels or close-up panels for people who stood further back unless you were RIGHT UP AGAINST THE STAGE.
I will say, Linus handled himself very well despite all these issues and actually held a very good set of panels, trying to engage the audience the best he could. And even said to me he was nervious when i spoke to him later and a bit on-edge due to the issues. As a musician of 14 years, for somebody who was nervous on a stage. I'de say he handled it all quite splendidly.
So, what did the first panel consist of? Well, some really interesting stuff. Linus unveiled... AMD VEGA! (A special edition to boot!) And an alienware build consisting of... *Gasp* THREADRIPPER AND AMD VEGA! he even ran it through cinebench and the team did the cabling on THE SPOT. Although the audio was on the verge of unrecognizable words half the time unless i totally focused on his lips, and i couldn't actually SEE anything past the camera team, so i unfortunately still don't know the cinebench score. But, the task manager stats were pretty cool.
Included is shots of the alienware system with vega and threadripper, luckily they realized most people couldn't see past the 50 people able to be up front near the stage and let everybody come up and see it at free-will.
After the first panel, audio issues were fixed... a little... they seemed to of just cranked their system to fix it, but throughout the entire event audio was a major, major issue being far too low.
I think they also realized the camera team was blocking a majority of the viewing and stood back for the rest of the panels, switched gear to a multi-phone camera setup for the on-floor stuff and some other things.
They did a Q&A inbetween and one of the questions was "What's the most expensive thing you've ever broken linus?" and Luke and Linus sort of started discussing how Linus drops a lot of things, but breaks few.
The second panel was a Razer Blade 4k unboxing, just a Razer Blade in every sense of the specs with a nicer screen. But, this was a highlight as Linus decided to unveil the Blade in a very funny manner... Putting the box on it's side, slowly prying off the black lid and trying to get it to "Fall off and leave the laptop in the box" for dramatic effect. This worked actually... but then... guess what guys, THE RAZER BLADE 4K CAME CRASHING TO THE STAGE FLOOR. Linus was embarrassed, people were yelling at him "DROP IT, DROP IT" for the entirety of the panels and you could just see his misery in that moment as it actually happened, as we all lul'd and cheered the hardest the crowd ever did the entire night. People LOST IT.
He lifted the blade like simba and hit the power button, a moment of fear as he might of been thinking "This thing better still work..."
Before this, Linus unveiled a custom RAZER TOASTER. Yes, a toaster that makes Toast with the RAZER LOGO. He joked and joked not to blow up Razer's social media while providing the hashtags and names to do so. Linus threw pre-toasted toasts in bags at the audience, Funny.
This toaster was over at the razer booth for the rest of the event, slowly making toast. Although you could only get a toast if you played Overwatch at the razer booth due to them not pre-toasting very much.
Later in the other panels was mostly just some unshowed footage, linus talking about the past of LMG and sharing some stories of different things, Fan material. Good stuff.
Throughout the panels there was LOTS OF SWAG being thrown to people, RGB Strips and controllers, Lanyards, T-shirts, Stickers, the crowd knocked each other over a few times trying to grab them in the chaos. But i'm gonna emphasize this, lots of swag was thrown.
End and Raffle:
The end had Linus hitting the floor to enjoy some of the event games for himself and later him going around doing video's on-site.
Channel Super Fun was out doing videos near the later half of the event doing all sorts of stuff.
The raffle began and man, this was a RAFFLE. We're talking 3 1060's, some 1070's, a 1080ti, (All stock models) a titan XP, 4, 5 SICK CASES, a 1050 watt PSU, SICK HEADSETS, SICK RGB MECH KEYBOARDS, SICK MICE, a flippin ASUS ROG PG279Q 165hz monitor and a large number of radiators, some 570 AMD GPU's, the swag was SWAGGING (I didn't win anything despite having 8 raffle tickets, but this was still a very fun moment.) Dennis even threw his OWN PERSONAL BACKPACK into the crowd. Swag was Swagging. Did i mention SWAG? Battery banks too!
Dennis was the HYPE MAN the entire tossing/panel section. People were going nuts for Dennis the entire time.
Linus also admitted they didn't have enough time to toast enough of the Razer Logo Bread and that his wife went to Costco and bought too much bread and started tossing LOAF AFTER LOAF of white bread into the crowd!
On exit of the event, i realized that somebody, while everybody was inside ended up using a marker and put a Dbutt meme on the Lambo's back window. (Lol)
Conclusion:
This was a very fun event for $30, and i'm glad i went. Although i had some issues sort of understanding some of the way the event was organized... or i guess.. Not organized. And some other such things i'll mention here, now know this is bias and i'm not knocking the event, it was very fun and the LMG Crew are incredibly nice and passionate people and the team was accommodating everybody who passed them, signed anything you asked on the spot and in general were handling everything very, very well.
I tried interacting with people at this event and many were from outside canada, and i hope they had a good time despite the location of the sticks of langley. But most people didn't come alone and i found it was actually hard to communicate with a good portion of the audience as they were focused on the games, overwatch, csgo, or just waiting in lines to hop back into more lines to keep doing the same things over and over. There wasn't a social area really, and it was filled mostly with parents of kids who got dragged, etc. Not a big deal for me tho, i did have some nice conversations with people in lines, small talk and such.
Although i will say that the kids at this event were... While mostly behaved during the raffle went way crazy, running by people, knocking into people, saying rude things unsupervised in the crowd when they didn't win and at all the panels rushed to the front. I was standing behind a man in a wheelchair in the center row during the last panel and had to sort of defend him from the swarms of 7 - 12 year old kids who were running back and forth trying to grab thrown swag off the ground and pushing a little bit too much'
I ain't hating, i'm just saying. Where were some of these kid's parents? And all in all, this wasn't much of an issue, just a little bit... Strange.
Linus and the team didn't follow any scripts really, winged the entire thing, which i applaud.
Although i don't know how they oversighted a lot of the below issues i had with this event given how much time they were talking and planning this out.
Cons I'de like to see fixed for LTX2018
Paper / Print Media: Itineraries, Schedules for competitions, ETC ETC like any organized event would.
Proper Audio: You can easily go to Long & Mcquade, spend 15 -$40 CAD and rent a big, fat self-powered PA speaker. Heck, you can rent multiple passive speakers and a board and have an audio setup so loud that you'll have 1000watts of head room for the size of langley events centre. Just a single 1200W self-powered speaker would of been completely audible, front to back.
Better Projectors / Video for people actually AT THE EVENT: The projectors i'm going to assume were provided by the centre, but it's not much of an excuse as again, you can cheaply rent better displays. Having close-up video / just some additional live-feed video panels could be a bit tricky for the main stage but again, i think the audio and video quality / issues are a bit... Well, it doesn't make any sense at a tech related convention of any size, especially when your using such expensive setups across the entire room and i know the team are passionate about these things. Why wasn't this planned / thought out?
MORE PRODUCTS, WHERE WERE ALL THE PRODUCTS AND PRODUCT DISPLAYS?!: More products from the sponsors for some of us interested in the market, i know this isn't PAX and it is more of a meet-up than a tech convention, but i was slightly disappointed in how little there actually was to see, from the lack of custom rigs even at the BR booth, to the lack of displays and booths only having 6 - 7 products and not really any product demo's, just products sitting there on a table.
MORE RIGS / SETUPS: The gaming booths for CSGO and Overwatch were only 4 rigs... 4 Rigs. Causing some long lines, and the VR setups at the razer / Zotac were singles, which is understandable. But i'de like to see if there's to be a repeat of this format some more setups and availability for people.
Food: This was a 6 hour thing, and it's excusable, but there were 2 options for food, WHITE SPOT and if you left to the park side of the centre there was a single RAMEN STAND (Dang that ramen was TIGHT THO FAM) and the only reason the ramen stand was there was because there was a totally separate community event / market happening there. Surprisingly, nobody either at LTX or the market knew LTX or the market were happening / cross advertised and i don't think anybody even attempted.
Bigger Isn't Better: I want more diverse attractions, smaller in size that could fit in the center over larger, space-restricting one's. I want more sponsors, or just more everything from a given sponsor of the event. The cash grab was fun, took very little space, the mice toss was fun, took very little space, the case toss while bigger, was super fun and didn't take up space. Maybe we can do a bit of a separation of the event next time with the bigger things outside to make up more room for the tech related things inside? I'm not sure, i'm just asking for more space to allow more of what awesome things were here at LTX2017 and to allow for some more interesting sort of attractions. This isn't a con as much as it is an idea.
Pros and Things that are Awesome:
The Crew was incredibly friendly, clearly enjoyed themselves highly and were full of energy.
The attractions were incredibly fun, and created a very fun atmosphere even although i wasn't into some of them.
The idea was executed well, despite some obvious lack of planning, and was very unique in it's blend of different attractions and activities.
It was unscripted, very impulsive and really well handled outside of the cons and it was just in general, a very cool thing without any real strict restrictions of things.
The Lambo and the idea of putting it outside, open, was super bad azz. It was amazing. Although i heard (Overheard) you guys left a $2,000 Red camera battery charger on the floor near the beginning, luckily nobody stole it i'm assuming. Also, NICE JUMPER CABLES LINUS!
It in general, was pretty awesome. Nothing world-changing and maybe even a bit bland, but it was a very warm atmosphere and people were HYPED.
And that concludes, my review of LTX 2017.
I'm not a major fan, i've seen every tech-related video from LMG and i watch the WAN show all the time on youtube after it's uploaded. But i only watch because it's tech-related and it's pretty well written / the WAN show is very informative for me and there isn't a whole lot of other people who produce as much of this kind of content, and in a way i like. And for me going to this event, it made me feel pretty good. It really showed me how down-to-earth the team is. It really had a great vibe about it, the 16K Rig was NUTZ, and despite some issues and some disappointments, it get's a solid 7.5/10 from me based on enjoyment.
I hope to see you all next year at LTX 2018! DROP ANOTHER PRODUCT LINUS! DO EET!
Edit: I don't make reviews for a living, i don't review things publicly, i simply reviewed this (and it's my first review of anything actually.) for the people who didn't get to go / couldn't and to offer some suggestions for the next LTX. Had a good time, was a good event! Edit2: Added aftermath image credit to AcidReign for photo, edited it and also made relevant images smaller in size to allow for better readability (Although i know, my english skills lack.)
Sorry, but Patrick has proof that it's not Zen and also Zen is bad and terrible. Also AMD went bankrupt last week and Intel bought Tesla so Jim Keller definitely works there.
I've had the NAOS 7000 for a while now - long enough to know - and I don't think I can ever use anything else. Not unless it's very similar. For example, that textured side of the one in the OP would be a complete deal-breaker. It wouldn't be long before all the little sunken areas fill with crap and it takes forever to clean, and still doesn't come out perfect.
MysteriousMrEnter brings up some REALLY good points on why the "advertiser-friendly" excuse is bullshit. Advertisers don't care if the video features cussing or sex jokes. He also talks about why the "YouTube is a private company, they do whatever they want!" argument is bullshit, and I agree with them.
What stops youtube from saying "your ads won't be served to x channels that are edgy or controversial" and let other advertisers say "don't care, serve all the alternative right and MGTOWs you want with our ads"?
If it's not about censorship why is it all of nothing?
Am I the only one or do these "reviews" keep getting shorter and less in-depth? No DX12 comparisons? No power comsumption tests? How about noise levels? Idle temps? Just like your RX480 "review", this video feels really barebones. Minus all the outro and intro, the actual "review" is only around 4 min long.
Heck, your old unboxing videos goes more in depth than this.
If AMD can provide an 8-core at the level of Haswell-E for $400-500 then i'd buy it.
Otherwise, there'd be no reason for me not to pick Intel's platform of Skylake-E (Q3/Q4 2016) for the better value of a great 8-core.
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