After hosting some smaller scale Tweetups myself I was very interested to see how last night’s Twestival was going to go. These things can get worryingly complicated, but I’m happy to say that despite an initial bout of confusion (over whether the venue was going to enforce its ridiculous dress code) the whole thing seemed to go off without a hitch.

I’m a little hoarse this morning from having one too many conversations over the ‘music’, but the free beer, wine and grub made up for that. Hell, I even won a raffle prize and did a little jig with a cute girl to Ben’s crowd rousing Twitter song.

As with all social media events though, the emphasis for me was the people – catching up with a few familiar faces and finally meeting some fine Twitter folk for the first time. In that respect the event worked really well and I had a much better time than at the Moo bash a few months back. There was a real sense of moving out of the echo chamber and it was a relief to see and meet so many people that I’ve never crossed paths with before. I had a lot of conversations that I’ll follow up on this week so some interesting stuff should come out of the evening.

I also got the occasional nod about some of the cool stuff I’ve been involved with over the last 12 months – and each time it was my great pleasure to remind everyone that everything from the film screenings to hanging with Han Solo started at events just like this one and through working with people that I’ve met almost exclusively through social media.

Amanda and the Twestival team did some sterling work last night and I’d certainly love to see the Twestival become an annual fixture on the London events calendar.

Speaking of events… I’m off to the Tuttle soon. We’re announcing some big news there this morning, but I’ll be writing about that later…