MAKE: Blog: Maker Faire returns! May 3rd & 4th 2008

Maker Faire returns! May 3rd & 4th 2008

Make Pt0560
"Combining old-fashioned crafters with forward-thinking technorati, fashionistas, and mad scientists of all stripes, the Maker Faire is a hands-on celebration of all things DIY brought to life by Make magazine." -- The Onion

Buy tickets now and save! Discount ticket sales end on April 25th, 2008.
Maker Faire returns! Booming DIY fest expects record crowd - May 3rd & 4th 2008! Last year, over 45,000 people from all across the country (and beyond) came to the Bay Area to celebrate the world's premier event for DIY (Do It Yourself) creativity--Maker Faire! This year, May 3rd and 4th, the event returns to the San Mateo Fairgrounds once again, for what will be the biggest and wildest Maker Faire yet! Put together by Make Magazine and Craft Magazine, Maker Faire celebrates things people create themselves--from electronic gizmos that would make James Bond jealous, to "slow made" foods and homemade clothes that would make Martha Stewart swoon. The event is a non-stop "wow-fest" where surprises and inspiration are as ubiquitous as the festival air.

"At the surface, Maker Faire is a fun event for people of all ages," explained Event Director Sherry Huss. "But more than just a weekend of creative entertainment, we want people to leave feeling inspired--that they too can create things, express themselves, and engage the world around them. Our goal is to resuscitate the spirit of American innovation!"

Named "Best Special Event" at the 2007 FOLIO FAME Awards, the 2008 Bay Area Maker Faire will put a special emphasis on "Green" living. There will be a huge exhibit featuring Farm Aid's Homegrown Village, a local farmer's market, Swap-O-Rama-Rama's giant used clothing swap, DIY workshops and fashion show, Bazaar Bizarre's crafts fair, a live Prius plug-in car conversion from Bay Area's Calcars.org, and much, much more.

Along with the hundreds of Makers displaying their unique creations, specific event highlights from this year's Maker Faire include:

Greg Leyh's 19 foot Tesla Towers - live performances daily
Wedding Bells! "The Neverwas Haul," a self-propelled 3-story Victorian House, will host the first-ever Maker Faire wedding
Saturday Evening Fire Spectacular (extended hours, 6pm - 10pm) - Power Tool Drag Races, Steampunk Spectacular, musical performances, The Flaming Lotus Girls, and more
Electronic Music Fest - an orchestra of musical toys, LIVE bands playing instruments you've never seen before, The Tarantulas Jug Band and much more
The Life-Sized Mousetrap - a giant re-creation of the popular board game
LUNAR (Livermore Unit of the National Association of Rocketry) will help parents and children build and launch Estes-Cox rockets
The Electric Giraffe - our huge, 17 foot tall, 1-ton walking robot giraffe will once again patrol the grounds of Maker Faire
The founders of ROBOEXOTICA present the "MindReadingMartiniMaker" and other award-winning cocktail-robots
Educational Robots - robotic demonstrations for two youth robotic competitions: FIRST LEGO League [5th through 8th grades] and FIRST Tech Challenge [7th through 12th grades]
"Like Father Like Son" - a local father/son team will be converting a 1967 Honda S90 motorcycle into a state-of-the-art plug-in vehicle
"ArtGolf" - the 3-hole artgolf course makes its Bay Area Maker Faire debut. Fore!
The Village Blacksmith - new to this year's Faire
Diet Coke & Mentos - Las Vegas' famed Bellagio can't match this DIY display - shows both days
The Institute of the Future Pavilion - what will Maker Faire look like in 2018?
Experimental Aviation - The Oshkosh Experimental Aviation Association (eaa.org) will be taking Maker Faire aviation to new heights
Cyclecide Pedal Powered Bicycle Rodeo

Many more headlining activities to be added in the weeks ahead...

Preliminary event sponsors include Microsoft, Adobe, Chronicle Books, Epilog Laser, Google, Hewlett-Packard, Lion Brand Yarn, Plenty, Sakura, ShopBot Tools, Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker, Singer, SparkFun Electronics, Sun and Walt Disney Imagineering.

"This is going to be the biggest and best Maker Faire yet," said Dale Dougherty, editor and publisher of Make magazine. "If you want to see the future of American innovation, this is the place to be."

The Details:

When:
Saturday, May 3, 2008 (10am - 10pm) - Sunday, May 4, 2008 (11am - 6pm)

Where:
The San Mateo County Event Center and Fairgrounds, 2495 South Delaware Street, San Mateo, CA

Admission:
Adults: $25/$20 in advance; Students (13-21): $15/$10 in advance; Youth (4-12): $10/$5 in advance; and children under 4 are free/

For the very latest information and updates, please visit: www.makerfaire.com

About Maker Faire:
Maker Faire is the premier event for grassroots American innovation. The event started in San Mateo, California in 2006 and expanded to Austin, Texas in 2007. Held annually in each of these locations, the event may expand elsewhere in the future. Maker Faire is supported by Make Magazine and Craft Magazine and O'Reilly Media the premier information source for leading-edge computer technologies. The company's books, conferences, and web sites bring to light the knowledge of technology innovators.

Buy tickets now and save! Discount ticket sales end on April 25th, 2008.

Posted by Phillip Torrone | Mar 31, 2008 12:00 AM
Announcements, Maker Faire | Permalink | Comments (6)

Comments

Oldest comments listed first.

Posted by: Phillip Torrone on April 4, 2008 at 1:39 PM

maker faire is in SF *and* austin

hello, maker faire, as it says on the site, many times - is in the bay area *and* austin, tx -- so hopefully we'll see you in october in austin.

i'm sorry the captchas are hard to read, but that's the point - machine intelligence is getting better at figuring out these things and we want to keep MAKE spam free. i'll see if there's anything we can do about the preview not being captcha'ed.

Posted by: on April 4, 2008 at 2:24 PM

Why can't you guys hold Maker Faires in other parts of the country? Not everybody wants to visit the SF area.

And by the way: Those captchas are REALLY hard to read. And why do I have to enter one to preview, and another to post?

Posted by: Phillip Torrone on April 4, 2008 at 10:14 PM

3 captcha

the system is now changed to 3 captcha - we can't change the preview though, sorry about that - but 1 out og 2 ain't bad in 24 hours.

Posted by: elv15 on April 18, 2008 at 8:39 AM

Price Increases?

The ticket prices for the Maker Fair this year are more than DOUBLE what they were in the past! I LOVE Make and Craft and have attended both SF Maker Faires, but I'm quite shocked at this increase...

Posted by: Phillip Torrone on April 18, 2008 at 8:44 AM

@elv15 - if you order tickets before april 25th you get $10 off *each ticket* - this is the 3rd year of maker faire, costs of things go up, like how much we are charged to hold events, etc - but the tickets aren't more than double than last year if you get them before the 25th.

Posted by: Randolph on May 2, 2008 at 11:20 PM

I quite enjoyed the Makers Faire the first two years, but $25 for admission is way too much. I won't be going this year.

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WOW! Thanks to everyone involved with Maker Faire Austin: attendees, makers, exhibitors, sponsors, volunteers, and crew...it was AMAZING! Over 350 Makers and 20,000 attendees! Be sure to check out the photos @ Flickr, and our Maker Faire posts for all the action! Next year, scheduled Maker Faire's are: Bay Area: May 3rd & 4th, 2008 - San Mateo County Fairgrounds and Austin: Oct. 18th & 19th, 2008 - Travis County Expo Center!