The pictures featured in this blog post were taken before the pandemic hit.
What’s better than cocktails? Cocktails + Cascadia! (Or craft beer, if you’re a beer person.)
In 2019 before the pandemic hit, we hosted an XDS pub meetup with Supergenius at Red Racer Taphouse. (Check out our friends over at Supergenius! They specialize in realtime design, production, and development for games, XR, and enterprise.) It was exciting to meet other games/VR/AR professionals from B.C., Washington, and Oregon--and of course, go exploring around Vancouver. We also had the opportunity to play some VR games together, like the popular Beat Saber.
While networking events tend to crop up around conferences all the time, this one was especially important, because networking is what XDS is all about! The External Development Summit, which has been a mainstay of Vancouver tech conferences since 2013, is all about finding the experts who can help you make your next big game, app, or system. (Or finding people who need YOUR help!)
The only way we can find each other is through networking, opening ourselves to exciting new connections, and investing in the power of collaboration. It’s no secret that us tech heads tend to have a hard time peeling away from our screens to go meet other humans, so conferences like XDS are critical for breaking us out of our silos and fostering the sort of external development relationships that last. (In fact, the only reason our little Cocktails & Cascadia event happened was because Supergiant reached out to Archiact and helped get things started!)
We’re looking forward to the day when we can meet everyone face-to-face again with cocktails and beers in hand. In the meantime, check out this year’s virtual XDS and grab your tickets here if you still need them!
