Thursday, February 25, 2010


Webstock 2010  - Hey DJ, what's that sound?
I'm gonna write this really fast, cos I have a lot of ideas to compress into this, and it's all gonna flow into one, so hold on...

Last Wednesday I flew down to Wellington for Webstock. Surprising lack of turbulence landing too. Nice. I had scored the gig as offical Webstock DJ from Jeff and Lisa of Mukuna, who held down the job last year but have since moved away from Welli (thanks guys). So you're going what is Webstock? It's a two-day conference featuring web developers, designers, thinkers and more. 24 guest speakers, kicking off with Scott Thomas, the design director for the Obama campaign. Just got better from there. I heard some incredible speakers.

My job was to DJ during the breaks and lunch. And when everyone was arriving to register on the first day - starting from 730am, which is a hell of a time to get your head around playing records. I also DJed the cocktail party on Thursday night, and after the Onya Awards on Friday night, from the top of the stage in the Wellington Town Hall, in front of the organ pipes. I discovered that night you can play Good times by Chic (scored another copy in Slowboat) and people will always dance. Dead cert.

I also got to hang out with some of the folks attending the conference, including some cool Wellington peeps I'd met on Twitter, who took me to their fave bars. It was my first time at Webstock, and other folk that I know who'd been raved about it, and now I see why. It's really hard to put down exactly what it is that makes Webstock so special, but it's a non-stop exchange of ideas and information for 48 hours. And a whole lot of fun.

On the Saturday night (after chilling out in Titahi Bay for the day, escaping the hordes at Homegrown) I did a Dub Asylum show at Havana Bar, an absolutely gorgeous little spot, with the Sounds Almighty crew, dropping loadsa reggae niceness. All in all, a fantastic time. Catching up on sleep is taking time....

Top photo by Anthea Whittle. Slideshow below by me, shot on my phone.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

cool pic pete - t

Ben said...

Pete it was great to have you there making such a big impact on the vibe. Glad to hear that you had a good time and hope that you're available next year :)

ben