> The panels I did see, the moderator (William Osman) didn't do a very good job moving through questions, so very few people got to actually ask anything.

William Osman’s style is the anti Mark Rober: His channel is about winging it with projects that halfway work if they’re lucky, while being kind of awkward and mocking everyone and himself. Moderating the panel and getting questions answered probably wasn’t their goal. The goal was to be kind of entertaining in the style that their viewers are familiar with.

Would be frustrating for someone to go into one of those panels expecting a traditional efficiently moderated panel.

> I also felt very strange that the only place I saw kids was lining up to ask YouTubers questions during the panels. I couldn't help but think about how many kids want to be YouTubers when they grow up - it seems like YouTuber idolism was the main event and not any of the awesome booths by non-famous people.

Open Sauce was supposed to be inspired by two other conferences: Maker Faire and Vidcon. Vidcon was primarily a YouTube and later TikTok conference. Open Sauce is basically VidCon’s successor in California with some maker booths added in and an emphasis on maker channels. It’s still heavily a YouTube conference though and the primary focus is YouTuber audiences, which is where they do much of their marketing.

Meeting your favorite YouTubers is one of the main selling points of the conference. I wouldn’t read too much into the fact that you saw kids excited about their favorite YouTubers at a conference literally pitched on YouTube as a way for them to meet their favorite YouTubers.

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hamandcheese 4 days ago | parent [-]

> Moderating the panel and getting questions answered probably wasn’t their goal.

> Meeting your favorite YouTubers is one of the main selling points of the conference.

These statements seem at odds with each other. If meeting your favorite YouTubers is the main selling point, then IMO they did a pretty bad job with the fan service.

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Aurornis 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

Let me put it this way: They put on a show that matches their style on YouTube and podcasts.

The few fans who get to ask questions aren’t the ones being served. They’re entertaining the mass of people who came to see more of the same content on their YouTube channels, which is disordered chaos where they joke with each other, make fun of things, and joke around.

It’s a continuation of their style everywhere else, and it’s what many of their fans came to see.

If you were expecting a traditional panel style where each question-asker got to be the focus and drive the show for a minute, that’s not their style.

I’m not saying it’s good or bad, it’s just different from what you might expect from a more formal conference.

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hamandcheese 4 days ago | parent [-]

Can't it be disordered, interactive chaos? What's the point of even showing up in person just to be in view-only mode?

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Aurornis 4 days ago | parent [-]

Like I said, I’m saying it’s good or bad or right or wrong.

I do think you’re not the target audience, though. A lot of my maker friends also skip Open Sauce because it’s more about the YouTube personalities than about science and makers

	▲	geerlingguy 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		I think they're missing out; groups like FOSSF brought a whole quasi-working garage chip fab (they're working on an 8086 working chip, slowly but surely), the creator of ADSBee was there, Meshtastic had a great booth and folks talking about wireless routing and antenna design, etc; it's like a science fair for adults, though there's a bit of the weird Vidcon vibes. You can ignore that part completely, and have a great weekend. There's also a whole robotics, rocket building, and gaming area, and booths ranged from artsy to extremely technical (CuriousMarc was live debugging some old HP oscilloscopes, nearby some Apollo hardware sitting out on a table).

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Dylan16807 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I don't think they're at odds. You can do lots of meeting but that happens outside the panels.