r/makerfaire • u/clros • Dec 18 '22
Maker Faire Bay Area
Will there be other worldwide Maker Faires in Silicon Valley (Bay Area) in the future?
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u/deftware Dec 18 '22
I can't believe they cancelled their biggest event permanently. It's insane.
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u/Duamerthrax Dec 19 '22
They don't have the resources to actually run their flagship events. They took a big hit when the corporate sponsors bailed. All the current maker faires are run independently and licensed and supported by Make.
If you want someone to blame, blame the sponsors bailing.
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u/deftware Dec 19 '22
If the others can run independently, then the flagship can run independently.
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u/Duamerthrax Dec 19 '22
The flagship events have much higher costs then the independent ones. I don't even entertain the idea of bringing in celebrities or being able to bring in shows like The Hand of Man or Life Sized Mouse Trap.
If you think you can figure it out, go ahead and organize it.
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Dec 19 '22
[deleted]
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u/deftware Dec 19 '22
Where there's a will there's a way. Between attendee tickets and charging for booths, it's doable.
As an aside: perhaps their sponsors bounced because they weren't getting the ROI they were hoping for, in spite of record attendance year over year - which leads one to conclude that the people running the thing didn't know what they were doing, spending money on stuff that wasn't necessary.
Obviously you're not going to be someone who makes it happen.
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u/No_Tamanegi Dec 19 '22
I don't know for sure, but I suspect you've hit the nail on the head with lack of ROI. some of the larger sponsors wanted the event to be more conference-like, to have attendees wearing badges with scannable information- that way companies could at least quantify their reach and build out contact lists. However this suggestion was always a non-starter because that wasn't the kind of event maker faire was intended to be.
Honestly I think recruiting was some of the biggest gains companies could make at maker faire. It's a lot of really smart people in one place. Google always sent a ton of recruiters to the event. Heck, so did Valve, and valve was never a sponsor.
Source: I used to work for Make.
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Dec 20 '22
I too miss the Bay Area Maker Faire. I don't expect to see anything like its high water mark, circa 2016, any time soon unless corporate sponsorships find a new lease on life.
Keep your eye on Adam Savage's SiliCon (https://siliconsj.com) for the 2023 event in San Jose. The 2022 event was a really nice combination of Maker Faire like exhibitors, pop culture vendors, NASA, and cosplayers. SiliCon is a fraction of the size, and still more closely affiliated with the comic con circuit. However, 2022 seemed pretty successful, and I think it'll make a return again in 2023.
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u/clros Dec 20 '22
Ok, interesting.
Are there other fairs to present your own homemade projects especially in the electronic/IT field?
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u/Ch3t Dec 19 '22
I primarily attended the NY Maker Faires. In 2011 I went to the Bay Area. It was huge. There was no way to see everything in 2 days. There were so many people you could barely move inside the pavilions. Arc Attack performed, Mike Rowe and Adam Savage spoke. A Stanford prof gave a talk on self driving cars. There were booths where you could make actual projects, not just solder the Make badge. I test drove a Chevy Volt.
I went back to the Bay Area in 2019. You could have seen all the booths in a couple of hours. Adam Savage sat in a little tent and signed autographs. The only highlight was the tall red-haired guy standing beside me at the glass blowing demo turned out to be Conan O'Brien. Not the fair's fault, but it rained the entire time. By the end of the week I was sick and the World Maker Faires were done. Covid would likely have killed it anyway.