PechaKucha night Salt Lake City

What do you get when you take 10 diverse presenters, 1 dance troupe, 1 renowned dj, and about 250 of you friends, colleagues, and neighbors? PechaKucha night - Salt Lake City vol. 4!
The State Room near downtown Salt Lake City was a fantastic venue to host the event. With a raised stage, huge screen, crisp audio, stadium seating, a bar, and a lobby it was the perfect spot to watch, drink, mingle and cheer on the presenters and performers.
As people began to arrive at the venue, music was provided by Mr. Jesse Walker a local dj and design advocate. Big thanks to Jesse for coming out, pleasing our ears, and spreading the PechaKucha night word to his network. Mr. Jesse Walker also provided music during breaks and after the presenters.
We began the night with an incredible performance dance piece by a local dance company, Ririe-Woodbury. Five talented dancers from their troupe and choreographer Charlotte Boye-Christensen put together, in a remarkably short period of time, an interpretation of their full length performance, “Touching Fire”. Balance, strength, grace, power, precision, and choreography all came together on stage to explore the fine line between madness and creativity. The performance was a great way to start the night and get the audience’s energy up for the following 20x20 presentations.
I won’t go on to summarize every presenter (you’ll just have to attend the next event and experience it for yourself!) but I couldn’t have asked for a more diverse group of presenters. I think it was exactly what PechaKucha night is all about. We had architects and builders, painters and photographers, a film and tv production designer, an inventor, a historian, and a couple of guys who do some crazy stuff out in the desert.
The presentations included exquisitely detailed architectural projects. Architectural projects benefiting families in the harsh desert; perfectly detailed in their own right. We heard from some young guys fighting a war against beige in our built environment. Two women presented, in alternating fashion, each other’s work in a wonderfully humors banter. We saw how an electric jellyfish-mobile came to being and what thousands of programmable LED’s can do to a crowd of people in the Nevada desert. We saw a photograph of Santa flash some passerbys, and how to make a time machine out of PVC and paint. We learned how creative Utahns turned the defunct mining industry into access to the World’s Greatest Snow. Another presenter showed us what clever insertions of geek can do to transform that bland “piece of art you might see hanging over your grandma’s floral print couch”. We even got to see how a little device with 800 carbide cutting tips can somehow lead to computer controlled road painting machines. Like I said, an incredibly diverse group of presenters and this just scratches the surface of what everyone showed and talked about in their 6:40. I can’t thank the presenters enough for standing under the spot light and showing us what they love to do.