Offline Conference sets out to ‘make the Internet come alive’

A new tech-focused conference is set to debut in Baltimore in June that’s aimed at fostering relationships among web-based creative workers. According to organizers Ian Patrick Hines and Klare Frank, the first edition of the Offline Conference will be held June 4-5 in Baltimore, and activities will be centered around Area 405 in Station North.
Both designers and front-end developers, Hines is an Anne Arundel County native who has recently worked with organizations using community organizing platform NationBuilder, while Frank works on the design team at D.C.-based Treehouse.
The organizers said they’re aiming to focus the conference on bringing attendees together and connecting, rather than featuring speakers. The idea is to offer an extended face-to-face meetup for people who usually only communicate on social media and recognize each other by avatar, Hines and Frank said.
They’re looking to raise $25,000 for the event through Kickstarter, and are only selling passes through the crowdfunding engine. So, if you want to attend, this is the place to go.

In case you missed it, yesterday we updated our Kickstarter with a full schedule of events. Who wants a cookout?! https://t.co/zfwfrNnrTk

— Offline Conference (@offlineconf) February 4, 2015

After seeing their posts on social media, we reached out to Hines and Frank — online — to get some more info about the conference. Here’s what they emailed back.

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How did you come up with the idea for the conference, and how did you put that into action?
I think the idea for Offline was really borne out of our experiences at other conferences over the past few years, and our shared feeling that what made them great wasn’t typically the speakers — it was the other attendees. At their best, conferences can be a way to make the Internet come alive by bringing the folks you know online together, offline. And so the vision for Offline was to distill that idea — that the best part of conferences is the attendees and the conversations — and create an event with that as the focus.
We knew right off the bat that we wanted to host it in Baltimore. We both grew up in Maryland, and we never even really considered hosting it anywhere else. We found an amazing venue in Area 405 (I really just can’t say enough good things about it), and after that the rest of our plans started falling into place.
Who are you hoping to attract as attendees?
I wouldn’t say we’re targeting one community over another. Among our early backers are folks from California, D.C., Maryland, South Carolina, and Ontario, for example. In the end, I expect that we’ll have a community of folks from around North America, with the Baltimore and DC tech scenes forming the core of the group.
What we really want is for Offline to be a place for nice, hardworking web folks to connect with one another, face to face. If you do creative work primarily online (design, web development, writing, etc.), you’ll feel right at home.
Why two days?
That’s a great question. I think that two days is just the right amount of time to actually get to know some new folks, without it being so long that you start to get that itch to head home. We really want Offline to be the sort of event where you could meet and have a chat with every other attendee, and one day definitely wouldn’t be long enough for that.
Do you have events lined up for the conference so far? Where will they be held?
Absolutely! The bulk of the event will take place at Area 405, where we’ll be holding our morning activities, small group discussions, etc. Our Opening Night event will be dinner & drinks at Betamore, which was a no brainer. In the next few weeks we’ll also be sharing the details for two more events: one the night before the conference starts for those folks who may be just getting in from out of town, and another post-conference event. Stay tuned!
What will you do with the $25K from the Kickstarter raise?
We’re really working hard to make sure that Offline is a truly memorable event, and obviously there are a lot of costs that go into that: the venue, food, drinks, decorations, etc. I don’t want to spill all the beans just yet, but I think folks are really going to love it.