No, our industry has a blogging problem.<p>Tech (is that our industry?) is not unique in it's practice of hosting happy hours, <i>especially</i> after conferences.<p>People like drinking. We could ask more conferences to host 5k jogs as an alternative meeting event, and it would be novel and fun, but it likely wouldn't ever be as inclusive as a happy hour (Also, it's hard to get 5 people in a circle talking while on a jog).<p>Not everyone drinks or likes drinking, but as a practical matter, it's:<p><pre><code> 1. convention
2. inexpensive for organizers
3. easy to organize
4. likely to encourage mingling and conversation
</code></pre>
Which are important goals for organizers that aren't as easily met by alternate activities.
Is this phenomenon unique to the information technology industry? I don't know what they do for fun at pharmaceutical conferences, but I suspect alcohol is often involved.
Does our industry have an anxiety problem?<p>Does our industry have an overgeneralization problem?<p>Does our industry have a busybody problem?<p>Does our industry have a problem with emotional overindulgence?
Every trade show I've ever been to has some kind of "reception" near the end of the first day, if not the night before the opening. Everyone is finally in one place and there's a bit of socializing going on at this point.<p>European trade shows tend to have fully stocked bars and bartenders <i>in the booths</i>.
Here's a point that gets forgotten in a lot of discussions of this issue:<p>> We’re also underlining that our events are for over-18s, maybe even over-21s, by holding them in licensed premises. Most of us know students or even those who are working professionally in our field long before they are “adult.” Should they be excluded?
<i>Almost every conference’s second day opens with attendees being asked how their hangovers are. Second day early-slot speakers joke that no one will turn up anyway, or they’ll all just be staring into their coffee. It has become normal, in fact expected, that drinking and staying out late is what we do while at conferences.</i><p>There are a number of issues here: drinking (to excess), staying out late, and scheduled events early the day after these are known and expected to happen. I would think that drinking is actually the least of them.<p><i>Of course it’s possible to attend these events and not drink, but being the sober person at a party gets tiresome.</i><p>It's also possible to drink without ending up drunk, by not drinking too much. Alcohol is metabolized at... I think it's around 1h20m/drink or so.<p><i>I attended Monitorama EU recently, where one attendee had proposed a 5K run around the Tiergarten in Berlin on the morning of the second day.</i><p>It sounds like this actually worked, which I find surprising (really, talking while running?). Something to note tho, is that it was a "small group" that did this which sounds even less all-inclusive than leaving out underage participants is.<p><i>Photo or history walks around cities can be attractive to a lot of people in our industry</i><p>Yes.<p><i>These are all good examples of simple things that can be organized around conferences to create alternatives or additions to the parties.</i><p>Something to keep in mind for these is that they're <i>outdoors</i>. Which means they're subject to weather and to daylight hours. They also involve moving around / doing things in an organized fashion.<p><i>That said, I am still struggling to find good alternatives to the pub meetup, particularly in the UK. Other than taking over the corner of a larger coffee shop for a daytime meet, what kind of things are possible and inexpensive for small groups? In particular I find it hard to organize alternatives for the type of meeting where the numbers that might turn up are hard to predict.</i><p>The thing about coffee shops and pubs is that everyone is in one place with no organized activities to pay attention to. This is the important part, and the drinking only comes in because that's what society says to expect when you have a group of people "hanging out" with no agenda in the evening.
Conference (a.k.a. Symposium) is “by definition” a place for such activities. :-)
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symposium" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symposium</a>
Interesting. Drinking isn't confined to "this industry." But, aren't most technical people control freaks more or less? Wouldn't they rather keep tight control of their thought process? Maybe being tipsy is the only way out of the exhausting, taxing aspect of continuous over-analysis and wanting to remain in control; the occasional forced-break that would otherwise be consciously difficult to attain.<p>This is veering a tad bit on the ironic side...
Personally, as someone who has a strong aversion to drinking to excess and has never been to a conference--the fact that I hear so much about drunken partying at these events is the single biggest reason I have never attended one. I keep hearing about fascinating conferences. Then I hear people talk about their experiences at conferences, which sound essentially like stories about partying in college, and think--well, if the main social activity is "partying," then I'll miss most of the social aspects of the conference. So I just watch videos of the talks online instead. (Maybe this is dumb, so I'm open to suggestions that my impressions are incorrect.)<p>The reactions here--which range from "everyone does it" and "there's no solution" (which may well be true!) to "stop being a whiny busybody," are unfairly dismissive. The author didn't say that drinking should be banned. She simply suggested a few alternative activities that didn't involve drinking, many of which can be organized by attendees themselves, and pointed out that a culture of partying may turn off some people, which is certainly true in my case.
Uff.. I haven't read A list apart in some years now as my interests shifted. But, is this what a once quality website/blog has become? Don't even want to open the article with such a bogus title.<p>Also, I have read and heard what has happened these last few weeks and can't seem to change my mind that the US folks are much more 'sensitive' to this kind of things then in EU.