Update: What TOA Berlin has been up to

Dear TOA Berliners,

Sorry for having been M.I.A. for a while. We haven’t forgotten about you, we have just been very busy over the last couple of weeks. So today’s post is an update on what we have been up to and what is about to happen. 

We would also like to welcome our new Facebook fans and Twitter followers! TOA Berlin is aiming to be a collaborative endeavour, enabling people from the tech, music and art worlds to come together and celebrate their creativity and passion, providing an informal space to exchange ideas, projects and dreams. 

Initially started by Nikolas and Lutz, TOA Berlin has been evolving a lot over the past months. After a few open meetups a core team formed itself organically around their initial vision. First on board were Guillaume, Jörn and Nikita. Marie, Magalie, and our two Daniels joined shortly after. The team practically doubled in size over the last three weeks and a few meetups were spent crafting a common vision that everyone feels strongly about. 

The most thought and heated debate went into “Why” we actually want to create such a festival. What is the motivation behind each and everyone who answered the callings on Twitter and Facebook? What is the drive to attend our weekly open meetups? Why do we all spend our evenings and weekends planning a festival that has little likelihood of making money?

We obsessively philosophized about the inner motors that keep our entrepreneurial spirit and energy up and running. So we decided to make the “Why” the guiding theme of our festival. Two days where we focus less about the “Whats” and “Hows” of our daily lives. Not another iteration of these talks on our product, our users, the money we raised. Let‘s share our stories and inspire each other instead! 

Of course we also spent some time evaluating where each person could bring most value at, structuring ourselves in little groups:

  • Administration & Legal 
  • Business Development 
  • Communication
  • Content
  • Logistics
  • Multimedia 

We are always looking for great characters and devoted hands to join us in this great endeavour, so if you are interested feel free to contact us. There are open positions in each of these groups and you are likely to spend a hell of a summer with us.

So in a nutshell, here’s what we have done since the last blog post: 

1. Building an awesome core team 

2. Defining the common vision (#festival #openair # informal #knowledge #sharing #why tech #startups #art #music #creativity #passion)

3. Agreeing on the Festival format. One day of intense knowledge and story sharing at one central location. One day of satellite events that are organized by the Berlin community.

4. Hunting down the coolest, most magical open air location. We are still in between two awesome locations and will let you know as soon as we have made the final decision.  

5. Deciding on a legal structure. We all decided to jump into this venture, “donating” free time, skills and network, but after  some time realized that in order to this an unforgettable event, we need to commit more than just a few hours of our free time. We are still in the process of evaluating all options, but it may turn into a commercial entityso that everyone who puts hard work into this may get a small bonus in the end (if there should be money left). 

6. Developing the communication strategy. We need your help in spreading the word on our Kickstarter campaign that is about to launch. It is essential for us to check whether we are just romantic dreamers – or if there is an appetite for a Burning Man-like gathering of the tech startup community at large. Not only the founders, developers, or those financing the ecosystem, but also the artists, designers, musicians that fuel the whole scene. The outcome of the Kickstarter campaign will be a critical message for us.

7. Building the website and other multimedia content, such as editing the videos of the startup CEOs we interviewed. We will release those interviews weekly until the festival.

8. Pencilling a date. Ok, this one is still in progress as we are still fine-tuning the location. But we already know the festival will take place around end of August/ beginning of September.

NEXT STEPS  

1. Everything is geared towards the the launch of the Kickstarer campaign. Together with the campaign our website will go live this week and we will need you help to spread the word like peanut butter! The normal tickets price will be 99€ for the two days, but there will be early-bird tickets on Kickstarter so get them asap.

2. Filling the festival with content and events: we have the frame and already some people who pledged to host activities during TOA Berlin, but we need more! If you want to share your story or host an activity, please let us know. 

3. Rocking Berlin and spending an unforgettable summer with all of you. We want this to be a collaborative endeavour, a festival from the community for the community, so we count on your support. Let’s make this summer epic! We certainly can’t wait to meet you all.

Please feel free to share your feedback and suggestions.

Much Love! 

The TOA Berlin team.