venue recommendations?

[Nicholas Clark]

On Fri, Mar 06, 2009 at 12:19:37PM +0000, Caroline wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> After chatting to a few folks at the tech talk the other week (which was
> great, by the way, thanks to all involved), I'm thinking about trying to
> organise a pub-based tech meet for London bioinformaticians. I need to
> locate a pub venue in central London which has a bookable room (free if
> possible, cheap if not) and a screen, or at least a big wall onto which
> we can project stuff. As London.pm seems to be pretty well acquainted
> with the drinking establishments of central London, I thought someone
> might be able to recommend a few likely places?

Beer and laptops don't mix :-(

I think the only time london.pm has had techmeets in pubs, and hence paid
attention to the criteria you seek, was when a few were held in the upstairs
room of the Angel at Old Street:

http://london.randomness.org.uk/wiki.cgi?Angel%2C_EC1Y_1BD

I don't know what the deal was there - buffet food was provided, paid for
by Fotango, and for all I know Fotango also paid a fee for the room. Fotango
imploded some time ago, and the tech meets were some time before its demise,
so I don't think that anyone is around who knew the deal. Also the pub may
have changed since then - the comment on Randomness is "Bob has not been here
for a while, but seems to remember it being nice enough."


Presumably any pub that advertises "live sport" is in the running, although
I've no idea what proportion these days are using large flatscreens rather
than projectors. But I'm not sure if the "official" london.pm hive mind (if
such a thing exists) will have good idea on pubs to have tech meets in, as
london.pm has kept tech meets and socialising firmly partitioned. london.pm's
view of pubs is that they are places to get away from IT (or rant about it),
rather than enjoy learning about it. :-)


Alternatively, can you obtain use of a portable projection screen, and free
yourself from constraints about the fittings of the venue?

Nicholas Clark