LTX 2017 Event Review (X Pics!)

[Raymond TSM]

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

1. Paper / Print Media: Itineraries, Schedules for competitions, ETC ETC like any organized event would.
2. 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.
3. 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?
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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:

1. The Crew was incredibly friendly, clearly enjoyed themselves highly and were full of energy.
2. The attractions were incredibly fun, and created a very fun atmosphere even although i wasn't into some of them.
3. The idea was executed well, despite some obvious lack of planning, and was very unique in it's blend of different attractions and activities.
4. 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.
5. 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!
6. 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.)

[Billy_Mays]

When I go next year hopefully look for a kid Tarans size trust me and Taran Feels sorry for me

[Haaselh0ff]

I, personally, very much enjoyed the review. Really gave me a feel for how the event was and i gotta say it sounds like fun and i wish i could've gone (hopefully next year!). Hoping they can fix the audio issues if they do it again and maybe they could stream it some more next year. I know that there is a major appeal in being there in person so i feel live streaming it could still be a possibility (but only if they have the man power to do it,  constantly filming something like this,  i imagine,  would take a ton of effort).

Edited July 30, 2017 by Haaselh0ff
a word

[SaTaNsRoBoThO]

Thanks for the extremely detailed review!

Despite being in Langley, I didn't go so this review was great to read and to see the pics. It confirms a lot of the concern I had about the event being worth the admission and time. Not hating, just that after the full list of attractions/events came out, it just didn't seem to have the value for me. I'm sure many others were happy with it and that's great.

Sounds like they may have been going through the L.E.C. House P.A. which is notoriously poorly implemented.
I've been in the venue many many times and the audio is always pretty terrible. I was a live audio engineer by trade for 10 years so I'm well versed on the challenges.

I'd love to see more builds and manufacturers booths at a subsequent event.
I know it was mostly a meet-up and they went the extra to add some fun events, but I'd love to see them turn this into a more tech convention to go along with the fan meet-up

[Raymond TSM]

2 minutes ago, SaTaNsRoBoThO said:

Thanks for the extremely detailed review!

Despite being in Langley, I didn't go so this review was great to read and to see the pics. It confirms a lot of the concern I had about the event being worth the admission and time. Not hating, just that after the full list of attractions/events came out, it just didn't seem to have the value for me. I'm sure many others were happy with it and that's great.

Sounds like they may have been going through the L.E.C. House P.A. which is notoriously poorly implemented.
I've been in the venue many many times and the audio is always pretty terrible. I was a live audio engineer by trade for 10 years so I'm well versed on the challenges.

Yeah, i am actually 99% sure they just went through the house speaker. Unknowing to them how bad it really was. They knew it was an issue tho' and likely will be prepared next time.

[Olli399]

"unfortunately still don't know the cinebench score."

 

Floatplane video out with the score - 2866.

[Hackaloken]

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.

[Raymond TSM]

17 minutes ago, Hackaloken said:

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 do imagine the audio and visual issues of the screen was a result of the centre, my critique isn't really that LMG brought bad tech, but simply that they didn't really think to bring out some backup gear / event gear. Long & mcquade is about 10 minutes from the event, and could of been resolved even on-site, projectors / screens are a bit trickier, but i was surprised simply because of how much hype they raised about it that no plans or a pre-event walk-through of the provided gear was done. 

Obviously this wasn't planned, i doubt they would willingly use that sort of a setup lol 

And cool to get some clarification on the Dennis Backpack, but either or, it was super bad azz.

Either or, i'm sure that lessons were learned and i remember many times playing music in this province and into the states that you just can't trust venues to provide you gear in any situation, when it happens, it's incredibly nice when it works, but you always bring spare gear encase of disaster.
Hopefully they are able to cut their rental of the centre down due to this, cause while it didn't botch how awesome the event was, it did prevent it from being that much more awesome.

It was a pretty good event. 
 

[captain_to_fire]

4 hours ago, Raymond TSM said:

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 think @LinusTech or @Slick should screen attendees and that only 16 years old and above can join. Perhaps ask for their passports or any IDs.

[Gale]

Did you get to meet Max? (:

[3 Lions]

The more I look at these images the more the venue reminds of the Newcastle Metro Radio Arena near where I live. 

[Aldrin10]

I wish I am able to go there. But anyways, thanks for the review.

 

Thx.

[b3ar]

I'm pretty sure that in the picture of the Alienware 51 case, the dude with the hat and blue shirt is the same dude who won the Titan XP. For a guy winning a Titan XP, he seemed as enthused as if he'd won a bag of dirt.

 

 

[benjr]

I flew from >12h away to attend this event and agree with your pros/cons.

 

The crew were the stand out stars for their attitude and energy.  I never saw them turn down a photo or signing opportunity and they came pre-prepared with multiple sharpies each.  I wanted to get a shot with Dennis and Colton.  I managed first but not the latter.

 

They fell a little out of schedule and as the first stage presentation was happening I was half way through my food.  I wasn't sure if food was allowed down on the floor so I stayed up in the stands.  The stands had some of the best views I think.  However the projector screen were really bad, and from the stands it was inaudible.

 

I knew in advance there would be a lot of swag so I didn't bother fighting among the crowds by the stage.  The crew had backpacks full of the stuff and were just looking for ways for offload it all.  Everyone in our group ended up with a tshirt which we got for participating in the sumo game.  Win or loose, we all got one.

 

As you pointed out there was a bit of a missed opportunity by the sponsors.  The products selections on display were thin.  At one point I heard someone saying they would have bought some of the products if only they were for sale.  It wasn't obvious, and I still don't know, if they were actually selling the products or just showcasing them.

 

Edit: All the booths were 100% legal

[Raymond TSM]

16 hours ago, hey_yo_ said:

I think @LinusTech or @Slick should screen attendees and that only 16 years old and above can join. Perhaps ask for their passports or any IDs.

I think that it was fine that children were there and younger individuals and didn't have an issue with a mass majority of them. And i agree with this incentive, but i remember a time when i was under 19 in this Province (19 is our age of drinking, cigarettes and unlike the U.S if an event is marked as an age requirement it MUST BE 19+) and i remember many bands i liked coming through canada before i had a passport, mostly their last tours / very rare they come to canada and due to our laws of age restriction, despite being 18 and not even drinking i wasn't able to attend.

So, in a way i agree, but the way canada is with this sort of thing. I think it'd also be a shame and many kids would feel left out, but that's sort of just the nature of Events in B.C. (Although we could have a 19+ area with a little bar or something like that (A legal beer garden is fine if separate but, 90% of events don't have a separated garden but a full 19+ rule.) but this event was clearly a "For Everybody" event and alcohol was absolutely banned.)

In one way, i'de like to see a more adult-orientated, tech-related event. But a good portion of the team are family people, and in the same vein, i'de hate to see the responsible / behaved children be banned or barred for the acts of a minority of children whom's parents clearly didn't give a single ****.

There were a couple groups of very young children whom were very well behaved, and it seemed like the funnest thing to them since sliced bread. But then there were kids almost squashing themselves trying to grab toasted slices of bread.

I will note another thing i seen at the event tho that was a bit disturbing, not really related but it's something that's bothered me, a large, obese woman with a stroller was in the back rows of seats at one of the panels and had a small child like the age of 3,4 and the child was moving in the stroller and the big obese lady started violently yelling at their kid about how she took all this time to come to LTX and she wasn't gonna let the kid ruin it for her. (I am assuming some of the older children were her kids as well, also going to assume they were apart of the few groups of kids whom were pushing, shoving and being rude during swag tossing and etc. I guess it's no surprise.)

I think the few people around who heard this, much like i, all gave her a pretty evil look. I personally, just gave her an evil, evil look with a sigh, and walked to the other side of the audience.

But on the flip side, there was a lovely mother who a young child in a stroller, with another young child around 3,4 and the kid went running over to the Ball IT and jumped right in and had a blast as the mother was supervising. It was a pretty heart warming thing, the kid thrashed a couple balls out of the Ball It and Teran came over with the balls and handed it to the kid and had a conversation with her about how it's just a joke, but he was happy somebody was truly enjoying it.

Teran came over to me and a couple people i was chatting with in-line about some audio products and told us about a fish that apparently eats things and poops out sand.
Of course, i had to say that the best coffee beans in the world came out of Cat Poop, so anything was possible.

Then there were a couple Dad/Kids teams, and those kids were very well behaved and there were many moments where they'd all do a certain activity together, very well supervised and controlled, very respectable.

So, i think the issue here wasn't that there were a lot of kids, but that there were SOME kids with SOME parents that... well... Y'know. You'll see these things at any kind of family event.
And i think the idea of having a "For Everybody" policy at this event was mostly positive, it made a lot of kids extremely happy, gave them some activities to do and it really wasn't that bad at all, never even heard a single kid or even baby cry at the event or have an outburst the entire day.

And given the nature of the non-tech related activities and games, the very very basic demo activities, like the Watertube shaping at the BS mods booth. I think it's safe to say this was made from a family orientated place in the team, and the event was centralized around more of a carnival sort of atmosphere.

So, to fix this one thing... It's a very complicated thing that i don't think is feasible to fix without banning people of a certain age, but then there's a lot of consequences of that. And then it was also a very friendly, open environment, it was like you were just hanging out with the crew and booth people over anything else, i didn't see a single confrontational dispute, or any confrontation in any ways. 

Just lots of love, lots of friendliness,and lots of nerds, kids, mostly good parents and... Yeah, i don't think for this in particular event, a ban on age would of been positive.
However, i think a bit of a different theme if they go a more tech-orientated direction would of probably lessened this one tiny con of the event.

Those are my ramblings on the subject, no easy fix, the easy fix of banning people based on age would of probably been detrimental.

[nicklmg]

On 7/29/2017 at 8:39 PM, Raymond TSM said:

-snip-

Awesome review  glad you enjoyed the event!

 

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!

[TVwazhere]

11 minutes ago, nicklmg said:

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

Sounds like for only two months worth of notice, You still managed to put on a good show. The short notice was the main reason I wasn't able to go, but I'd definitely go to an LTX 2019(8?) 

[AcidReign]

Well done review bro! I agree with you completely.

[nicklmg]

1 hour ago, TVwazhere said:

Sounds like for only two months worth of notice, You still managed to put on a good show. The short notice was the main reason I wasn't able to go, but I'd definitely go to an LTX 2019(8?) 

2018  

[dennisliao]

On 7/30/2017 at 0:14 AM, Hackaloken said:

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.

that wasn't my backpack, i was using it to carry all the swags lol

[Nicktendo]

4 hours ago, nicklmg said:

Awesome review  glad you enjoyed the event!

 

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 will say, I would have liked to attend, but being that the event was for one day and I live all the way out in Texas would make a one day trip very expensive between plane tickets and hotel costs...all for one day. Yes this was the first for LMG to pull together and there should definitely be more to come, but hopefully LTX will be able to come down to the states, despite import costs to move LMG properties to the states across the border just for a 3-day weekend.

 

For what the ticket price was worth (which for $30 is not bad), I would need to be living in Canada near :Langley/Surrey in order to justify my cost of going w/o plane tickets (would be driving) and hotel costs (would be very local).

[A-c0rN]

On 7/29/2017 at 10:39 PM, Raymond TSM said:

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

1. Paper / Print Media: Itineraries, Schedules for competitions, ETC ETC like any organized event would.
2. 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.
3. 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?
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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:

1. The Crew was incredibly friendly, clearly enjoyed themselves highly and were full of energy.
2. The attractions were incredibly fun, and created a very fun atmosphere even although i wasn't into some of them.
3. The idea was executed well, despite some obvious lack of planning, and was very unique in it's blend of different attractions and activities.
4. 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.
5. 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!
6. 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.)

These photos sadden me and make me happy, because it costs nearly $700 to get the best out of LTX from where I am. Thanks @Raymond TSM, and THANKS TO ALL THE LMG GROUP!!! I will be there next year, so EXPECT ME, @LinusTech!

[Raymond TSM]

11 hours ago, nicklmg said:

Awesome review  glad you enjoyed the event!

 

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!

Holy crap. you guys had a conversation about my review? That's pretty... Sorry, surrey speaking here but. G. That's G. Linus Lambo G.
I just want to reiterate and clarify a bit here.

Audio: I totally understand this is your guy's first self-done live event and i remember too as somebody who used to live events that this is something that can only truly be learned from personal experience and having something bad happen. So no problemo and i assumed as much that it was the venue.

Food: This also makes a lot of sense to me, i remember many times you guys speaking about foodtrucks and ETC and that's such a simple thing to convince such to happen as it's business for them, happy attendees for you. It seems it was the venues fault for most of these faults, and i hope in the contract you guy's... had some kind of grounds when it came to satisfaction of the quality of the venue to recoup some of the likely heavy costs.

Vendors and Tech Demos: I get what your saying, and yeah, i'de agree that in terms of swag and i guess the sponsors own uncertainties to the actual quantity of attendance and thus exposure. What was brought was still really cool and they are heroes for providing some lasting, cutting edge products that made QUITE A FEW people probably extremely happy, and will never forget the event. (I'll be wearing the LTT Lanyard for life, even in my own business meetings with my staff and clients, and i poly clear coated linus's signature on my phone case. It's permanent.)

TL;DR; these are completely fair reasons for the cons i provided, and given it's your first event and the nature of the event and size of sponsors and the uncertainty that surrounds a first event of this caliber and size with such a different idea. You guys get a full pass from me, and i was simply emphasizing for a good, unbiased review.

All i can say is that, as a 21 year old with nobody to come with, without a total vested interest in being there for the whole "Whoa it's the LMG crew" and more of a "WHOA ITS THE DISGUSTING LAMBO, KICKAZZ." and i won't lie, i'm actually a pretty hard person to get to have a good time at this sort of thing; that the fact i had a mostly positive experience, and had nothing but praises to say about the meat of the event. Says a lot, and you guys should be very proud that this was your first event, and even although you guys were stressed and in new territory, i want you all to know you did a fantastic job.

And i would probably look at that contract real close when it comes to provided staff (Because i even noticed most of the gate guards even left after the initial wave.) and the provided gear if that's in there and taking a good look at it on a legal front as i have a pretty good idea how costly such a rental is. If a small venue can't get away with it, i'de definitely say a bigger venue cannot get away with it. (Business is business.)

Glad to hear the crew agreed with much of my review and i wasn't off basis in any major ways as an attendant.
P.S: I think the dickbutt actually adds some flair, it shoulda been a different color tho. And Linus should get a dickbutt air freshener or something instead of the birdie.
P.S.S: For next year, could we get a busted Razer 4K Hung from the ceiling as a memorial of LTX17? I mean, you did the Ball It, you can do a Ball It with a hanging broken Razer 4K above it.
 

 

7 hours ago, dennisliao said:

that wasn't my backpack, i was using it to carry all the swags lol

Good to have clarification from the source! Although i'll still believe it was your backpack, and you were just being a studmuffin hype master Dennis!

Thanks to @nicklmg and @dennisliao and everybody at LMG and of course @LinusTech for holding his cool, and handling things in a funny, interesting and understanding way even when things went a little less than ideal.

If anybody has anymore questions about how the event went, or just comments, i'll be around!
- Raymond out!

 

[Tech_Dreamer]

Nice thread m8 . Glad you got to enjoy the event .