On Wednesday we had our third TOA Berlin meetup. This time EyeEm was so kind to host us. Just hours before a new release of the neat photo discovery and sharing app, Founders Florian Meissner and Ramzi Rizk took the time to join the session and EyeEm is now committed to supporting the organization of the event. Thanks for that guys! 

We decided to have weekly meetups with changing locations, ideally within the holy walls of a startup that wants to actively support the festival organization. So if any startup wants to host the meetup next week, please reach out to us via Twitter or Facebook. 

The Outcome 

Meetup 3turned out to be yet another creative brainstorming session and even though there were no final results, it did reveal which components of the festival people can easily agree on and which components are still up for discussion and yet to be determined.  

Points that by now everybody agrees on 

• We want to organize an atypical event that celebrates the passion for technology and innovation.
• This one goes out to the romantic hearts: Every summer has these 2-3 days, where the world seems to stand still and life is nothing else but wonderful. TOA berlin shall be a platform for such “summer moments”! 
• TOA Berlin is not about Berlin, but the world with a first year focus on Europe.
• The event should be Berlin style: Bold, Edgy, Artsy, Guerrilla and on a Shoestring. 
• The event should be created by the community for the community.
• The music, art and film scenes should also take part in it.
• “Organizations” (Startups, galleries, bars/clubs, bands, etc.) are encouraged to organize their own events at the time of TOA Berlin with one event calendar bringing it all together.
• Many organizations will opt to do cool parties. This is great, but we hope that there will also be events that bring people together to work and learn from each other (i.e. workshops, hackathons).  
• This should be a summer event, so Open Air should play a big role.
• There needs to be a core organization team with ideally a minimum of one person who will spend the next months holding the strings together full-time.

Points that are still open to discussion and to be determined 

• Will TOA Berlin have a central location (i.e. Mauerpark) or just be the platform for peripheral events organized by individual organizations (Startups, Galleries, Bars, etc.)? 
• If we opt for a central location, what will it look like? The original idea was to have a fair style space where any organization can present itself creatively how ever they want (booths, food stalls, stages, burning man style camps, etc.). The question in the last meet-up arose whether one should rather provide one format under which organizations can present themselves instead (i.e. Gallery style). We also discussed whether any organization should be given the chance to “exhibit” itself or whether it should be a curated approach. The latter could of course also be one of the peripheral events.  
• Will visitors pay for tickets and what will be the price? 
• If there will be visitor tickets: How will the ticketing work? Will we opt for the original twist idea where everyone is encouraged to sell tickets/invite people to the event? (i.e. Someone who sells more than 25 tickets can rent a booth at the fair. Someone who sells more than 50 tickets can host an official partner-event of the conference. Someone who sells more than 100 tickets can become an official sponsor of TOA Berlin.)
• Will we use Kickstarter to sell the tickets and acquire sponsorhip? 

What we are still looking for  

• “Organizations” that want to host our next meet-ups and help with the organization of the event.
• People who want to help with the organization of the event. We will publish a list of positions that need to be filled in the next days. Most urgently we are looking for a video editor and a programmer who could help with our unfinished website. 
• Sponsors (Great “early bird” sponsorship opportunities) 

Next meeting 

The goal of the next meeting is to decide the core essence and components of the festival on which to execute on. We will let you know the time and place asap in our Facebook Group as well as our Twitter and Facebook pages. 

by Nikolas Woischnik