Proving a Point with a Fantastic Open Party

By David Knight |

What a great night – hundreds of people, great music, a fantastic location and sponsored beer. And it didn’t even rain! Silicon Allee’s summer party at the Unlike Gallery on Friday was a big hit, and also helped prove a point.

We had to switch venues not long beforehand because our original location sponsor was worried about our open invite on Facebook. There has been a spate of Facebook party incidents recently; most famously, a 16-year-old girl from Hamburg called Thessa had to go into hiding in June when 1,500 would-be revellers gatecrashed her birthday party. The teen had accidentally set her Facebook event page to public rather than private.

But we wanted to show that you can use the open invite philosophy in a positive way rather than being reactionary and assuming the flash mob party is a bad thing. And that’s how it worked out – everyone had a lot of fun!

There were party-goers not just from across Berlin’s tech scene, but from all walks of life. Everyone was out to have a good time, and the atmosphere was terrific. Indeed, as someone remarked on our Facebook wall: “Some more parties of this kind and ‘magnitude’ and London, Paris and Barcelona can close shop.”

So thanks to everyone who helped us out, including Proud, Buddy Beers, Carlsberg, 6Wunderkinder and Unlike, and thanks to everyone who showed up! It was so much fun, we might have to do it again sometime…