Logistics: an unavoidable reality

When I agreed to organize an informal, old school tweetup, I thought it would be easy. After all, it was going to be super informal. No reservations. No RSVPs. All I had to do was write
a blog post, pick a venue and send some tweets.

I could not have been more wrong.

The reality of organizing an event in Edmonton—even an informal, weeknight event—is that a lot of people might show up. There has been quite a bit of interest for this tweetup already, which is great, but most of the venues that are large enough to accommodate the potential size of the group require reservations. With reservations comes the need to have a sense of how large the group will be. And with that comes RSVPs.

So that “super informal” tweetup in January? There will be Eventbrite tickets after all. They’ll be free and you won’t need to show them to get it, but you will need to RSVP via Eventbrite to give us a sense of how many people will be attending.

The trouble with names

A few people have also expressed concern with the name and hashtag, noting that “Take Back Twitter” sounds a lot like “Take Back the Night,” and that the similarity is potentially offensive since there is no association between the two. There’s potential for a #TakeBackTwitterYEG hashtag to be used in support of Take Back the Night Edmonton or other worthy cause, so we’re going to drop that name to avoid any confusion or offense.

Neither Tamara nor I thought of the association with Take Back the Night when we picked the name, and I apologize if I offended anyone as a result of the original name.

The new name and hashtag (but not theme! It’s definitely not a theme!) is #YegOldSchoolTweetup. The intent with the “Take Back Twitter” moniker was to take it back to the old school, which the new name makes clearer.

TL;DR

Due to the popularity of the event and some issues with the original name, we’ll be requiring that guests RSVP and we’ve changed the name to #YegOldSchoolTweetup. You can RSVP by following this link: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/yeg-old-school-tweetup-tickets-14759759839.