Next Week’s Maker Faire in San Mateo Could Be Bay Area’s Last • Hacker News Board

Re: Next Week’s Maker Faire in San Mateo Could Be Bay Area’s Last

#21

Post by benzofuran » Sat, May 11, 2019, 4:21 AM UTC

Red_Tarsius wrote: post #19

benzofuran wrote: post #8

It's a shame - in 2008/9/10 it was really something to see, but as a few other commenters have said, it's (and a lot of the maker movement for that matter) have declined a bit. I personally think this is due to the infantilization in part of a lot of media outlets, where the emphasis has been placed on getting the ideas into the most hands possible instead of folks who'd actually benefit. Focusing the faires around 3…

The culture has changed a lot. Geek originally described loners with unreasonable passion and knowledge about a specific niche. Now it's a codeword for capitalist cattle. It's the Big Bang Theory crowd that turned consumerism and brand loyalty into a point of pride: I wonder what Nietzsche would say about that.

I'd almost argue that we need to find a new word for it but at this point there's not much to it. I've had the discussion a few times about how Big Bang Theory is basically a minstrel show about smart people instead of your choice of minority group and while some folks get the comparison, most just glaze over.

Re: Next Week’s Maker Faire in San Mateo Could Be Bay Area’s Last

#22

Post by newnewpdro » Sat, May 11, 2019, 4:34 AM UTC

It's been terrible for years, the last time I went a major automaker had taken over a huge swath of parking lot and was giving test drives, I think it was Chevrolet IIRC.

Long ago it was full of grassroots makers showing off their DIY stuff but it quickly became a commercialized trade show targeting these folks and their audience as consumers instead of hosting them.

Re: Next Week’s Maker Faire in San Mateo Could Be Bay Area’s Last

#23

Post by Taniwha » Sat, May 11, 2019, 4:36 AM UTC

kurthr wrote: post #20

gaze wrote: post #9

I'm heartbroken that Halted closed. Is tinkering with physical stuff in the bay area dead? Or well, scaled back significantly in comparison to a decade ago.

And WeirdStuff too :( It's all moved on line... even the market places in Shenzhen are less than half full because everything (even phone repair) is on line.

I was there last month, looked just as full as it had ever been - Seg is getting more consumerish - the place I used to go to to get test fixtures made is now an aisle of drones - more already made stuff than just parts in places but not really all that different

Re: Next Week’s Maker Faire in San Mateo Could Be Bay Area’s Last

#24

Post by runamok » Sat, May 11, 2019, 4:44 AM UTC

mceachen wrote: post #2

This is such an epic, annual celebration of learning and creativity. Losing it would be a tragedy. How do the economics not work out here? 100-150K visitors/year, each dropping (on average? $20 for entrance ticket)? Don't they require commercial presenters to pay for their space? How much does it cost to rent the San Mateo Fairgrounds?

The tickets are pricier than that. $25 for students and $40 adults... https://makerfaire.com/bay-area/BUY-TICKETS/

Re: Next Week’s Maker Faire in San Mateo Could Be Bay Area’s Last

#25

Post by mirimir » Sat, May 11, 2019, 4:48 AM UTC

There's something ironic about a "Maker Faire" that depends on a commercial organization with many employees.

Re: Next Week’s Maker Faire in San Mateo Could Be Bay Area’s Last

#26

Post by bdowling » Sat, May 11, 2019, 5:13 AM UTC

benzofuran wrote: post #15

Ar-Curunir wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The HP books didnt really start as a means of appealing to a mainstream crowd though...

They are young adult fiction, which is like saying that cars weren't built for driving. I'm not sure what you intend they were written as then, as they surely aren't literature.

Surely they are literature in the broadest sense of the word.

Re: Next Week’s Maker Faire in San Mateo Could Be Bay Area’s Last

#27

Post by saboot » Sat, May 11, 2019, 5:19 AM UTC

lazzlazzlazz wrote: post #5

I first went to Maker Faire in 2012 or so, and it was incredible - the variety I saw was unreal, with so many smaller and interesting projects. I've gone three more times since then, and each time it's been less and less inspiring. More uniformity, more emphasis on unrelated consumer products like pre-prepared food offerings, less emphasis on interesting electronics kits. Maybe I became jaded, but maybe Maker Faire h…

Yes, the last maker faire I went to had what I both loved, and hated, about it summed up in two adjacent booths.

One was a young girl teaching passerbys to sew a purse together using recycled jeans and fundraising for animal rescue missions.

The adjacent booth was to pay $15 for a "crystal therapy healing and ionic rebalancing" session.

Re: Next Week’s Maker Faire in San Mateo Could Be Bay Area’s Last

#28

Post by Animats » Sat, May 11, 2019, 5:37 AM UTC

Tossrock wrote: post #10

gaze wrote: post #9

I'm heartbroken that Halted closed. Is tinkering with physical stuff in the bay area dead? Or well, scaled back significantly in comparison to a decade ago.

Definitely a trend. There's also the TechShop bankruptcy and the subsequent "TheShop.build" clusterfuck, MotoGuild shutting down, etc.

Yes. Maker spaces in Silicon Valley are doing very badly. I was a TechShop member for most of a decade. They went bankrupt, in a very messy way. I'm currently a "TheShop.build" member, at least for a few more days. They closed their San Francisco location months ago, despite it still being listed on the web site. The San Jose location got a 3-day notice of eviction from their landlord, but they seem to have survived that for now. Rumors of unpaid employees, and former employees removing equipment they'd loaned to the shop indicate that the end is probably near.

The new nonprofit shop, Maker Nexus, is below critical mass. Only 50 or so paying members. (I tried to join, but their outsourced signup site can't send me a confirmation email. So I didn't join.)

What happened? The "maker movement" fad declined. Etsy changed their policies - you no longer have to make it yourself; you can outsource manufacturing. TechShop SF used to have six CNC laser cutters busy cranking out "handmade" crap for Etsy. That stopped. The rest of the place mostly turned out stuff for Burning Man. Rising rents forced shops out, of course.

TechShop tried to pivot to "STEM" or "STEAM" education. In practice this meant teaching middle schoolers to wire up Arduinos. That's fine, but a huge mismatch with the tools available at TechShop.

Autodesk's previous CEO, Carl Bass, thought 3D printing was going to be a big deal, and put money and software into TechShop. His successor decided that wasn't happening and pulled the plug.

It's been a long time since there were people building parts for X-Prize entries.

I don't think there's any public space in Silicon Valley which has everything you need for surface mount soldering. Which is embarrassing.

Re: Next Week’s Maker Faire in San Mateo Could Be Bay Area’s Last

#29

Post by kqr2 » Sat, May 11, 2019, 6:12 AM UTC

lazzlazzlazz wrote: post #5

I first went to Maker Faire in 2012 or so, and it was incredible - the variety I saw was unreal, with so many smaller and interesting projects. I've gone three more times since then, and each time it's been less and less inspiring. More uniformity, more emphasis on unrelated consumer products like pre-prepared food offerings, less emphasis on interesting electronics kits. Maybe I became jaded, but maybe Maker Faire h…

I think they should have split the event into Maker Faire for adults and Maker Faire for kids / family. Also have more hands-on workshops and less infomercial tech talks.

Re: Next Week’s Maker Faire in San Mateo Could Be Bay Area’s Last

#30

Post by extrapickles » Sat, May 11, 2019, 6:22 AM UTC

lazzlazzlazz wrote: post #5

I first went to Maker Faire in 2012 or so, and it was incredible - the variety I saw was unreal, with so many smaller and interesting projects. I've gone three more times since then, and each time it's been less and less inspiring. More uniformity, more emphasis on unrelated consumer products like pre-prepared food offerings, less emphasis on interesting electronics kits. Maybe I became jaded, but maybe Maker Faire h…

I only went as a sponsor a few times as part of a small 4 person company, but each year the fees increased to the point that you almost had to sell stuff with obscene markups (not low volume hobbyist stuff) and they started only caring about the very large sponsors.

Our last year there (somewhere around 2012), they had this fancy "sponsors only area" that had free food/beer/etc and took up a large amount of floor space (it was at least 20'x20') that otherwise could have gone to actual makers exhibits.

I think what happened is that they started chasing sponsors, when they should have been focusing on the makers, and vetting that the sponsors were doing something attendees would be interested in directly (eg: no large java booths).