New International Encounter

On Tuesday we played or second show, which was already a bit tighter than the first one. A handful of seminar guests who had already arrived were there, but most of them were still on their way, or checking in to their hotel.

After we finished the show, suddenly all of them walked in (apart from the people from Drak, who got stuck in the airport in Amsterdam). It was great seeing everyone again. As they arrived after the show, we all had plenty of time to say our hellos and catch up on what we'd all been up to since the last time we met.

On Wednesday morning it was time to get to work. But not before we all had breakfast together.

And everyone registrated, got a badge and a festival information pack.

After breakfast, we had to make sure everyone knew everyone else's name. So Kjell and Alex gathered everyone into a big circle and got everyone to introduce themselves with their first name and the country they were from.

Then we moved into the part of Kanonhallen dedicated to the seminar and people gathered around a big piece of paper to write down the questions they would like to see discussed.

Some people spoke about how they worked in their respective countries.
This is Adne (sorry I don't have a Norwegian keyboard).

This is Johan from Ghent - he runs the company with possibly the most unpronounceable name: Kopergietery. Just try it. You can do it.

Michael from Denmark.

Then it was time for lunch. Over lunch, more talking happened - this is a networking event, so that's what people did: try and discover which nets to throw out and which ones to dive into.

After lunch we set up four tables, each with a piece of paper with different questions on them. People spread out and formed four groups to discuss the four different themes.

In the meanwhile, Krister and his team tried to work out how to cook an enormous amount of rice.

After a few hours, the paper on the tables got very full.

So it was time to present the results of the table discussions (either in the shape of more questions or as shared opinions) to the rest of the group.