Tokyo Mechanical Keyboard Meetup: how it happened and what we did
(This post was initially intended for reddit but I figured I should post it here for better readability)
It all started in a discussion I had with Sheraton who runs originative.co. He mentioned he was planning to visit Japan in May so we thought it might be nice to get some enthusiasts together and have a small chat about keyboards over a beer or whatever. The scene here is rather small, but I already knew a couple of local users like /u/fuzzycuffs and /u/evo_spec. I messaged them and since they were interested, I figured I should open an IC thread. The response was somewhat lukewarm so I figured it would be just four of us.
Since the initial response on reddit and GH was rather small, I tried reaching out to local communities, but to my surprise there were no specialized places like kbdlab for Korean users, or /r/mk. My Japanese is pretty bad so I double-checked with hasu (the man behind TMK, alternative HHKB controller and all other goodies) and he didn’t know any places either.
In such case the only people who would know about keyboard event promotion in Japan would be the local keyboard companies.
My first instance was KBParadise, the Taiwanese company that works closely with Century. I want to take a minute to thank Daniel, their representative, with all the help he’s done for the meetup. He helped me to reach out to Century, taught me a few things about doing business in Japan, and most importantly was the first to support the meetup by sending some switch samples and keycaps. Sadly, other companies weren’t as nice, I got a blunt no from Diatec aka Filco, PFU aka the HHKB people flat out ignored me (I tried to reach them through my friends at Fujitsu later, but no luck there too), and so did JustSystems and for the most part Topre (whom I did manage to reach after all though). The situation turned around when I messaged Archiss, I received a reply from Kimura, their representative, and they were basically the first Japanese company to a) reply on my email and b) interested in participation.
Around that time I posted a meetup thread on reddit and geekhack and got more users involved. To attract more people (and companies!) I wanted to add something unique to the meetup. I contacted Calder from Wooting and they offered to show us the demo of Wooting One way before it goes to retail, /u/fuzzycuffs agreed to tell more about his GH60 RGB build, Kimura-san offered to bring the new keyboard prototypes from their collaboration with Leopold, and Remainder Keyboards offered me a prototype of their new 60/62 hotswappable keyboard (which sadly couldn’t make it to the meetup). Besides demos, I wanted to make it look professional, and /u/outragedpudding offered me his services in designing the meetup banner and the Tokyo Meetup dye-sub keycap design.
With that in mind I kept messaging people and companies around the globe and asking if they wanted to support my meetup. Luckily I received an immense support from the community for which I am still extremely grateful. /u/LeandreN offered me a plate, keycaps and stickers, ctrlalt.io offered me a box of switch testers and stickers, rama.works surprised me by sending a huge box full of rama PCBs (all for free!), and Aconic artisan keycaps offered me their products for the giveaway. Also right before the meetup I got a pack of Tactile zine issues from CPTBadass with stickers and other goodies, and we got a ton of Ducky switch testers from Archiss.
However, we still didn’t have a confirmed meetup venue. /u/fuzzycuffs was a huge champ and helped me to scout possible places. Sadly none of them were for free and the rates were quite heavy for my wallet (e.g., $300 for 3 hours). Luckily I got messaged by /u/___LOOPDAED___ whose friend Caven works at KDDI which has a big conference room reserved for tech meetups. Coincidentally this was also the place where Tokyo iOS developer meetup’s coding club happened, so Caven and I were basically in the same meetup group the whole time. The place was perfect for the meetups: it had a conference room with a projector, a lounge and even a bar with a separate room for a vending machine. Thankfully we were able to reserve a spot for three hours on Sunday and we were ready for the meetup.
The meetup itself was quite successful. We had a lot of surprises, both good and bad. On the good side we had a huge number of participants (60 signed up, over 30 visited), lots of keyboards and some interesting visitors. We had chrisandreae demoing his friend’s ergonomic keyboard prototype (I hope I linked to the right thread), we had a person from Tokyo Linux Users Group, the shop owner of DecentKeyboards who printed out the dye-sub keycaps for the meetup, and we had about three or four people taking professional photos (which are super helpful in future meetup promotion). Sadly we also had some accidents. A keycap prototype I received from Aconic disappeared and we couldn’t find it later on. I still hope it was a mistake, but it might have been stolen as well, since such artisan keycaps can cost quite a lot.
Overall I think the whole meetup experience has been great. For me I think this hobby has outlived its technical side but it still keeps me interested because of the warm and welcoming community we have here. I am hoping to meet with everyone again, hopefully next year or maybe even this Fall. The hardest part for me was promotion so I am hoping to collaborate with Archiss on organizing the next meetup and hopefully attract more people and companies. For now I am running a group buy on Tokyo meetup dye-sub keycaps (closes next Saturday) and I opened a facebook group for keyboard enthusiasts who live in or in close proximity to Japan (although even if you don’t, you’re still welcome to join!).
I think that’s pretty much it, let me know if I missed anything or anyone :)
