This post was written by Ian who you’ll know as kernow1988 on our forums or @kernow1988 on Twitter.
Friday the 19th of March started at about 9.30am, with me bounding out of bed, psyched that I was making my way to the far north of England for the Simply Syndicated meet up. After packing (I don’t really do forward planning) and grabbing the obligatory past for my journey, I was dropped to the airport to embark upon possibly the longest journey that anyone undertook for the meet this time around.
Unfortunately all did not go to plan, and my flight was delayed by 2hours because of weather. On my eventual arrival – 5 hours and 350 miles later – at my palatial accommodation (Premier Inn) I was pretty tired.
Fortunately I had a evening plan, and after a quick freshen up I was out the door to meet with Jonathan Wilkinson (onewild) who greeted me like an old friend, and then proceded to show me my first glimpse of Leeds, and to whom I proved that us southerners CAN drink 
Fast forward past a slight hangover and a day of sleep and shopping in Leeds to 4.30pm at the Victoria Hotel, sat on my own with a pint as I was the first synner to arrive. Sat there on my own it has to be said, the nerves really hit me I’d been listening to these people for years, or talking to them in the live rooms/ on the forums too. Now I was going to meet them? The mind boggled.
Jonathan appeared and shortly after he sat down, pint in hand (seldom was it otherwise) Mike Storer came over and introduced himself. I have to admit, I did a double take – here was a voice relatively familiar (and a very distinctive laugh) coming out of a guy who I had never really seen. After a bout of introductions we settled in to watch the Scotland/Ireland six nations rugby game. Now, I’ll take this point to make it clear – I have no idea what is going on in a game of rugby, and so fell back on critiquing the asthetics of the teams until some other synners arrived.
The next influx of people were the gaggle staying at the hotel, Richard and Allison included. On introducing myself I earned myself a spontaneous hug, aswell as meeting Shane (tokenbg), Dales and Jeny who were also interested in the rugby.
After realising that everyone else seemed to have found alternative seating arrangements I headed off in search of them, to be greeted by a back room populated exclusively by members of the Simply Syndicated community, all holding court with the Emperor and his Queen.
What followed was a blur of introductions where I met the vast majority of the SimSyn hosts of Rich, Allison, Will Tristram, Craig Bevan (I was *very* excited about meeting him, Gloria and Boz, aswell as some familiar names from he forums Tim (trekkiegeek), Andrew (uraifenn), Greg (the big lebowski), Mary (mekka). Plus a few who I must apologise to for being crap and forgetting names.
The back room was a haven for small electronic devices, probably supporting more bandwidth than most family households. It initially took me by surprise that everyone had at least two devices of some sort, iPhones, Android Phones, video cameras – Rich even brought the MiFi just incase he felt a pang for any impromptu live streaming! Looking around the room again however, it didn’t surprise me at all that this group of people had such a concentration of gadgets and gizmos, upto and including an LED name badge =)
Eventually last orders was called in the Vic, and the majority of us gathered outside for a photoshoot, before carrying on to a very strange bar/club called FAB. An establishment I had never even imagined, let alone existed. There was Star Trek, Star Wars, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dr Who, Aliens and probably many other types of paraphernalia that I just didn’t recognise, all topped off with a huge mural behind the bar that had a Shatner Kirk on it. The place was amazing, and just the kind of place a SimSyn gathering was perfect for.
Over the next three hours much alcohol was imbibed – just ask Rich what he was on after he came to the bar with me and there were some brilliant tweets from some of the group including Rich’s “Name another podcasting CEO you’ve been clubbing with…”
I couldn’t recount the whole evening, but the two points that stick out in my mind are the following.
First off was me and Rich stood outside when he spotted a gentleman with some supremely bad hair. On seeing this he handed me his video camera, and said “Ian, you video me – I’m going to interview that man about his hair. This is either going to go well, or it’s going to go really, really badly…”. I have yet to see this video, but am dying to do so.
The other stand out point was the whole group dancing to something (I cant remember what), with Andrew videoing/ streaming the spectacle when some random put his arms around my shoulders and Rich’s. Rich turned to the guy and yelled into his ear the immortal words “You have no idea how famous you are right now, you’re live on the internet.”
Eventually, when we were all danced out, and we’d convinced Allison that it was home-time we staggered back to the hotel for a few hours of unconsciousness.
Breakfast at McDonalds the next morning at 10am was a much more subdued affair where I was described by Boz as being “much less tigger” than the previous evening – a description I remain supremely pleased with. Over the course of the day more and more synners left, until ‘twas just me left, waiting for a flight that ended up being delayed (again!).
So, the meetup in a nutshell; 700 miles round trip, two wicked nights out and finally meeting some really amazing people. Shane (tokenbg) said it in his post, but it’s perfect so I’m gonna steal it, the experience was just like the forums in real life, with added alcohol. I can say honestly that it was the best night out I’ve had out in the last 12 months, and that I’m going to try my damndest to get to the next one!
Sorry if I rambled on, not really used to writing but I just thought I’d try and get my experience of the meetup up here for you guys to see.
Ian / kernow1988
