Launch Party with a Twiist: Vancouver
Host: Shira Lazar
On Wednesday night I attended Launch Party with a Twiist co-organised by Launch Party Vancouver and Twiistup. It was the best event I have attended this year, I had been anticipating it since the first launch party and I knew it wouldn’t disappoint.
Drinks, music, tech friends (that can dance), cool local demos all in an awesome club. What more would you want mid-week? The fact Thursday was a write-off for most of the core people that stayed past one tells you it was an event not to miss. When was the last time you went to a club and had take out delivered there.
I have my calendar cleared for Launch Party 3 because it is getting better and better each time. Vancouver is a great city for tech geeks. So join the FB group and pack your dancing shoes so you don’t miss out next time.
So that’s the summary of the night, let me break it down further.
The Event
Maura Rodgers of Strutta. Heather Vescent of Twiistup
The event began at 5pm and it took place upstairs at Republic, a bar/club downtown. As per the request I bought along Chicken a la King soup (non-perishable good) for the Vancouver Food Bank which Strutta provided boxes for. It was my first time being in this club and I wish I had shown up before 5pm so that I could have taken some pictures when it was empty, as I really like the aesthetics of the place. When I arrived at about 5:30pm, I was greeted by a Launch Party sign. I dropped off my coat, kept my knapsack containing my photo gear, and headed upstairs. On the far wall were displayed the different sponsors as well as on tvs around the upper level.
At the beginning people mingled around while drinking and chatting. We were provided with a drink ticket and appetizers. I spent alot of time talking with new people I’d met (see People section), so I barely had anything to eat.
Erica, Lori, Monica, Caroline, Rebecca: Sporting their Sxip touques
There was an area where demos were displayed. As I tend to congregate among friends, I wasn’t aware of their location initially. The demos available were from Something Simpler, Sitemasher, Jiibe, The new Sxipper (thanks for the cool touques Lori!), and Handy Mobility responsible for LiveVote.
The organisers gave a short speech thanking everyone for attending including the sponsors and we socialised late into the night. Special thanks to Lyal Avery from Strutta who found us take-out sushi, wings, and pizza later in the evening when we were hungry. No need to leave the club — the food came to us 
. The evening was a success and I am anticipating the next Launch Party Vancouver.
The People
I would like to provide some background and additional information about the event focusing on the people in attendance. Hats off go to Maura Rodgers, co-founder of Strutta who spearheaded a fabulous event. I met her prior to the first Launch Party and enjoyed hearing about life in California (the Valley and the City) during the dot.com days. Boris Mann wrote an excellent summary about what she is doing here as she is originally from the States. She is definitely a great addition to the Vancouver community, as indicated by his interview of her.
Moving here from the Valley, where there is no shortage of fun events for people to attend, I thought an event like LP for entrepreneurs, techies, marketers was missing here. There are lots of great events like democamp, barcamp, VEF, and they fill a need too. After work, I am just looking for good mingling and want to bring the people together in and around this city, who are sitting on great ideas but not everyone knows about them. Every month, we hope to showcase about 4-5 cool, early stage companies in the city. It will be very informal and fun and give the people, who are not competing in the decibel competition
, a chance to warm up and be involved.
I met Shira Lazar of Shira Lazar Productions, who is a Canadian from Montreal now living in LA. She covers entertainment and tech issues in California. It was great to have her fly in as a host and interview featured companies and socialise with us throughout the evening. It is always cool to see Canadians being successful in the States. She will be hosting Twiistup 3 in January as well, so if you are in Venice, California I recommend you attend. Good times for all I’m sure.
At the last minute, Heather Vescent of Twiistup made the trip up and I’m glad she did. It was really by chance I met her as we just happened to be sitting down in the same spot and she introduced herself. We chatted so much that I didn’t really eat anything. We had a fascinating conversation about Facebook, social networking, and tech events in LA as she organises the monthly Los Angeles Geek Dinners. We also discovered that we have a number of common friends and she had just attended the Winnies organised by Irina Slutsky of Geek Entertainment TV.
Kim Cathers of Discollection
Everyone had a great time networking and socialising that night, I’m looking forward to the next one.
Relevance: A great opportunity to socialise and network with tech people and entrepreneurs in the city.