What is a Barcamp? Understanding Unconferences and Open Space

What is a Barcamp?

A barcamp is a participant-driven unconference where the agenda is created by the attendees at the beginning of the event. There are no pre-planned speaker lineups. Everyone brings topics, and the group decides what goes on the schedule.

Since the first BarCamp in Palo Alto in 2005, the format has spread worldwide, covering topics from technology and design to education, science, and social innovation.

Co-founder Chris Messina described the format as "like a spreadsheet": a grid of times and rooms where "people would just kind of come up with their topics and have conversations." Messina also coined the very first Twitter hashtag, #barcamp, in August 2007 to help people follow the conversation around barcamp events.

The Unconference Philosophy

Unconferences work because the best conversations happen when people actually care about the topic. What sets them apart.

• No spectators, only participants: Everyone is encouraged to contribute, whether leading a session or actively engaging in discussions.
• Passion-driven topics: Sessions emerge from what attendees genuinely want to discuss, not what a program committee selected months ago.
• Flexible scheduling: The agenda is built collaboratively on-site, allowing for real-time adjustments based on participant interests.
• Informal atmosphere: No rigid presentation formats. People talk, ask questions, and share what they know.

Open Space Technology Explained

Open Space Technology (OST) is the methodology that powers most barcamps and unconferences. Created by Harrison Owen in the 1980s, it follows four simple principles and one law:

The Four Principles

1. Whoever comes are the right people. The participants who show up are exactly who should be there, regardless of title or expertise.
2. Whatever happens is the only thing that could have. Focus on what is happening rather than what should be happening.
3. Whenever it starts is the right time. Creativity and insight do not follow a schedule.
4. When it is over, it is over. Be productive; do not extend discussions artificially, and do not cut them short.

The Law of Two Feet

If you find yourself in a session where you are neither learning nor contributing, leave and go somewhere else. That way, everyone ends up where they actually want to be, and session hosts get an engaged audience.

Most barcamps have adopted these principles alongside their own set of rules.

The Origin of the Name "Barcamp"

The name traces back to the early 2000s and Tim O'Reilly's Foo Camp (FOO stands for Friends of O'Reilly), an invite-only event for handpicked tech insiders.

In programming, "foo" and "bar" are classic placeholder variable names. In 2005, a group of developers and web enthusiasts in the Bay Area created their own, completely open counterpart to the exclusive Foo Camp. "foo" became "bar", and the barcamp was born.

In the community, the "bar" in barcamp is sometimes read as "Bay Area Rejects." Matt Mullenweg later wrote that Tantek Çelik had been invited to Foo Camp the year before but not in 2005, and that Mullenweg himself had never been invited. "A group of us put together a more 'open source' event in response," he recalled.

According to the BarCamp wiki, the event was organized by Tantek Çelik, Chris Messina, Matt Mullenweg, Andy Smith, Ryan King, and Eris Stassi. Tantek Çelik later recounted that the idea came up on July 10, 2005, and that actual planning began on August 13 at a café in San Francisco. Six days later, on August 19, the first BarCamp opened at the offices of Socialtext in Palo Alto. Stassi recalled in 2019 that roughly 200 people attended, and that participants actually camped in tents set up on the sidewalks and in the backyards of the Socialtext building. She described BarCamp as "an open-source response to some of the closed-source tech that was happening in the Valley at the time."

Co-founder Andy Smith put it simply: "The problem is the exclusivity: everybody isn't invited. Meet BAR Camp, an open, welcoming, once-a-year event for geeks to camp out for a couple days with wifi and smash their brains together. It's about love and geekery [...] like FOO but open." The founders also open-sourced the format itself, so that anyone could host a barcamp anywhere in the world.

Eris Stassi also designed the barcamp logo, a flame-and-signal mark that Chris Messina vectorized and published two days before the event.

Why Use barcamp.io?

Whether your barcamp runs on sticky notes, a whiteboard, or fully digital: barcamp.io works alongside any setup. It does not replace the analog feel. It adds a readable, accessible schedule that everyone can check on their own device.

• Instant visibility: Everyone sees the current schedule on their phone or on venue displays, no squinting at handwriting across the room.
• Easy session proposals: Participants submit sessions through a simple form, reducing the bottleneck at the opening circle.
• Flexible scheduling: Drag-and-drop interface lets organizers quickly adjust the grid as the day unfolds.
• Accessible anywhere: Participants follow the schedule from their phones, tablets, or laptops.

Even if your barcamp runs entirely on paper and marker pens, use barcamp.io in addition. At minimum, you get a digital archive of the day and a readable backup for everyone who cannot make out the handwriting from the back of the room.