Downtown Drupal Meetup at Sensis Agency in Downtown Los Angeles on October 1, 2013: Introducing BackDrop and DrupalCon Prague Retrospective

The 1st Tuesday of the month is coming up and it's time for the next Downtown Drupal meetup! We're meeting at Sensis Agency in Downtown Los Angeles on Tuesday, October 1, 2013 from 7-9pm.

This meetup is highly accessible by public transportation. Attendees often carpool to the meetup together, and those who are interested in attending remotely are welcome to join us via WebEx.

There will also be Drupal Happy Hour and a GLADCamp planning meeting earlier in the evening at 6pm. See our agenda for more information.

At this meetup, we're having our usual news and announcements, as well as raffle prizes, community Q&A, lightning talks (which are short, bite-sized presentations) and featured presentations. Is there a presentation topic that you're interested in? Post a comment to either request or offer a presentation, or contact any of the organizers listed above.

Drupal Happy Hour ^

Drupal Happy Hour is prior to this meetup and starts at 6pm at Maria's Italian Kitchen, which is very close to our meetup venue. Maria's is located at 615 Flower St Los Angeles, CA 90017

During happy hour, we will be talking about GLADCamp, the Greater Los Angeles Drupal Camp. This general conference about All Things Drupal™ is coming up on March 7th, 8th & 9th, 2014, and will be in Pasadena, California, at the Hilton Pasadena.

Thank You to Our Sponsors! ^

Our venue sponsor is Sensis Agency (@SensisAgency), a cross-cultural advertising agency with digital at its core. We got our start building websites and have expanded into a full service advertising agency, helping our clients take advantage of the fundamental changes taking place in the marketing world.

Our parking, video conferencing and raffle prize sponsor for this event is Exaltation of Larks, a Drupal design and engineering firm with a team of Drupal experts in Los Angeles. Visit us at www.larks.la and follow us at @LarksLA to learn more about our Drupal services and upcoming trainings.

Our organizing sponsor is Droplabs (@Droplabs), a Drupal-friendly coworking space, classroom and makerspace in Downtown Los Angeles. We're the leading low-cost coworking space in the Greater Los Angeles Area and have shared and private workspaces that are uniquely designed for entrepreneurs, freelancers and remote workers.

Drupal After Dark ^

Even if you can't make it to happy hour or the meetup, you're welcome to join us afterward for a Drupal After Dark. After we wrap up the meeting and clean up, a group of us will go to a nearby restaurant or pub. Stay tuned to the comments below for suggestions for a Drupal After Dark location.

Agenda ^

We'll start our meeting promptly at 7pm, so if you are at happy hour please be sure to request your check along with your food order.

Our meetups follow a basic format and starts off with Drupal news and announcements, local job announcements, raffle prizes and full-length presentations. As always, we'll also have community Q&A, during which time anyone in attendance can ask questions, divine answers from the crowd and give brief, 5-10 minute-long presentations known as lightning talks. We'll finish off the night with more networking and a Drupal After Dark at 9:00pm.

For any changes to our agenda for the evening, stay tuned to this meetup announcement or click the Sign up button below (or both!) to be notified when the agenda has been updated.

   6:00pm
   Drupal Happy Hour and GLADCamp Planning Meeting

   6:55pm
   Projector and Tables / Chairs Setup
   Start of WebEx Meeting

   7:00pm
   Introductions
   News & Upcoming Events, including:
   Raffle Prizes!

   7:30pm

   Lightning Talks
   Featured Presentations
   Introducing BackDrop, a Drupal Fork
   DrupalCon Prague Retrospective

   9:00pm
   Wrap-up, Clean-up and Close-up
   Drupal After Dark and More Networking

Join us on WebEx and Twitter! ^

WebEx

The featured presentations at this meetup will be broadcasted via WebEx, courtesy of Exaltation of Larks. WebEx works in your browser, whether you use Linux, Windows or Mac OS X.

Stay tuned to the comments below for the WebEx meeting information. To test that WebEx is working for you prior to this meetup, check out this "Join a Test Meeting" page:

   http://www.webex.com/test-meeting.html  

You can also receive the meeting URL and password by email by clicking the Sign up button below (a Drupal.org account is required).

Anyone who registers for the WebEx meeting will also be able to view the recording prior to it being uploaded to our video channel at http://www.vimeo.com/GLADrupal

Twitter

During the meetup, several of the event organizers will also be monitoring Twitter for feedback and questions that mention @GLADrupal.

Featured Presentations

At this meetup, we're having our usual news and announcements, raffle prizes, lightning talks (which are short, bite-sized presentations) and featured presentations.

Introducing BackDrop, a Drupal Fork

BackDrop is a new fork of Drupal 8 that's "intended to preserving the legacy audience of developers who value ease of use and ease of learning over architectural flexibility." What does this mean for Drupal? What does it mean for you? Come find out.

DrupalCon Prague Retrospective

By the time of this meetup, DrupalCon Prague will have wrapped up and we're going to cover all the big news and developments from the conference.

Raffle prizes! Collect them all! Must be present to win!

Raffle prizes at this meetup have been provided by Exaltation of Larks. Our raffle prizes often include discount codes, magazines, DVDs, books, and free seats to professional Drupal trainings. We are always grateful to our sponsors for their continued support. If you have any items you'd like to donate to the raffle, please contact any of the organizers at the meetup. Thank you!

Location and Directions

   Sensis Agency
   811 Wilshire Blvd. Suite 2050
   Los Angeles, CA 90017

Carpooling

To carpool or catch the Droplabs shuttle from Union Station, post below in the comments.

Public Transportation

Our venue is 100 feet away from the 7th Street / Metro Red Line Center Station. For information about bus routes, see http://www.metro.net/riding_metro/bus_overview/images/802.pdf  

   7th Street / Metro Center Station
   660 South Figueroa St.
   Los Angeles, CA 90017
   213-922-6000
   http://www.metro.net

Parking

Anyone who carpools and parks at United Valet Parking, Inc. (757 South Flower St.) will receive complimentary $5 parking courtesy of our parking sponsor, Exaltation of Larks.

• United Valet Parking, Inc. (757 South Flower St.; 213-622-0137)

This parking location is within a 3 minute walk of our venue and has a $5 evening rate if arriving after 4pm.

Street parking is $5 per hour from 8am-8pm Pacific. There are ample parking lots and garages in the immediate area. For additional parking locations, see http://en.parkopedia.com/parking/815_west_7th_street_los_angeles_ca_90017/

About Greater Los Angeles Drupal ^

With several weekly and monthly events, the Greater Los Angeles Area is one the most active areas for Drupal in the world.

Formerly named Downtown Los Angeles Drupal, we've been meeting regularly in and around Downtown Los Angeles, California, since early 2010, and now organize a large number of events in the area. Our signature events include the Drupal Job Fairs and the Downtown Drupal, Frontend Drupal and High Performance Drupal meetups.

Our members and organizers have produced hundreds of Drupal events, including job fairs, meetups and workshops, conferences, paid trainings, coworking days, study group sessions, movie outings, FREE tutoring sessions from Drupal professionals, and website barnraisings to benefit non-profits and members of our community.

Attending Drupal events in the Greater Los Angeles Area is one of the best ways to meet and talk with other Drupaleros and we encourage you to attend as many meetings and special events as you'd like. Whether it's to find solutions to problems you've been having, sharing something you've learned or just meeting interesting like-minded people, the Greater Los Angeles Drupal events are an essential resource for Drupal professionals and hobbyists alike.

If you aren't already a member of Greater Los Angeles Drupal, it's easy to join our community. Our community calendar is on our "Events" tab on our home page at http://groups.drupal.org/node/219129  

We proudly participate in the California Drupal Travelers Program, which aims to connect businesses and community members who are visiting the area with our local community and events. Inquire within by contacting any of the Greater Los Angeles Drupal organizers, or by joining the global Drupal Hospitality Network.

Sign Up! ^

Sign up below to receive the meetup's date, time, location and WebEx instructions by email. An automatic email reminder will also be sent 1 day before the event.