The first Mini Maker Faire in continental Europe was held last weekend on October 20th in Groningen, The Netherlands. These Dutch do it right: 3000+ attendees, a great variety of makers, fun hands-on projects, workshops, plus a ‘Scrapheap Challenge’ style team competition to build a Rube Golberg machine.

Within five short days of the faire the Groningen team had THREE great videos cut and posted to show their good time and great efforts! Wow.

Groningen isn’t alone; more and more Mini Maker Faire applications are coming from outside the U.S.  Time to get out the passport!

Upcoming international events:

• Maker Faire Tokyo is on December 1 & 2, and is the first featured Maker Faire in Japan, produced by the O’Reilly Japan office.
• Santiago Mini Maker Faire (Chile): December 15 & 16, 2012, the first ever in South America!

And, just announced:

• The return of Maker Faire UK to Newcastle, April 27 & 28, 2013!  Call for makers is open now.

Many 2012 fairs are wrapping up reports and are in the midst of the renewal process for 2013.  2013 fairs scheduled so far (all with open calls for makers) are:

• Houston Mini Maker Faire (TX): January 19, 2013
• Mission Mini Maker Faire (San Francisco, CA): January 27, 2013
• Las Vegas Mini Maker Faire (NV): February 2, 2013
• Tyler Mini Maker Faire (TX): March 23, 2013

Unfortunately the Denver Mini Maker Faire (CO) organizers have notified us that they will not be moving forward with their event that was planned for May 4.  Sorry Denver—but if anyone is tempted to take the helm there (or anywhere, for that matter), please check out our intro page on How to Make a Maker Faire.

But let’s not end on a down note…. Back to last weekend at Groningen Mini Maker Faire:

And for the armchair travel set, this last one has interviews in Dutch: