EMF Camp 2022

I decided (fairly last-minute) to attend EMF 22 after a friend reminded me it was a thing. I've never been to a festival before, so the idea of spending four nights in a tent surrounded by nerds was a bit scary. There was so much motivating me to go though.. ISDN or ADSL to your tent? That can be arranged. Ethernet to your tent? No problem! Fortunately there were still some tickets available due to (presumably…) COVID refunds.

Thursday 2nd

There wasn't anything on the schedule for this day, it was mostly just about arriving and getting your tent set up. Which, by the way, is my first time using the tent despite buying it over two years ago now. It's definitely a tad on the small side, but being able to have everything in a single rucksack was great.

First impressions:

• There are a lot of furrys here. Not my thing but the suits(?) are kind of impressive.
• Lots of people are wearing collars. Not sure if they're the kinky kind or the furry kind.
• Lots of trans and pride flags. Very cool!

It's nice to see more pride flags than union jacks, especially during the queen's jubilee, which no one even mentioned or thought about it seems!

Here are some photos from the first day.

Friday 3rd

The only problem so far as been the amount of noise made by the generators. I just about managed to sleep but they definitely kept me awake for a lot of the night. This morning I was able to find some ear plugs so went back to sleep for a couple of hours. These helped a lot!

I attended a few talks today, covering topics like digital art, particle physics and restoring a scanning electron microscope.

This evening, Look Mum No Computer (LMNC) played and was excellent. Admittedly, he didn't manage to play a single song, but this was possibly more entertaining than if everything went smoothly.

After LMNC I went and did a bit of exploring in Null Sector, featuring cool art installations, weird lighting, and a scanning electron microscope.

Saturday 4th

It was quite a rainy day, and I was also feeling quite tired. Spent most of the day catching up on rest, naps and snacks.

In the evening there was a Queer Magnetic Field (QueerMF) meetup which was quite fun and lead to some interesting conversations. I then bumped into someone I knew from Bangor, great to see him again.

Sunday 5th

Sunday was a bit dryer but started off quite wet. People started to leave and I lost power to my tent (which I was getting on an extension cord from my neighbours). I attended a couple of talks early on and then decided to sign up to volunteer. I heralded for a couple of hours (screenshot below :D). The advantage of volunteering is getting a token for free food. I also considered volunteering on the bar in the evening, but decided that learning how to work in a bar during peak times is a bad idea.

Couple more photos from the day:

Monday 6th

Pretty much just got packed up and caught the train home. EMF was a really special experience. I can't imagine feeling so comfortable amongst such a large number of strangers anywhere else. I put faces to people I'd only known off irc and twitter, met some interesting new people and caught up with some old. I'm glad I motivated myself to go and now I want to go back for 2024! The EMF teams did an amazing job at organising the entire event.

Tags: emfcamp