BlogHer Food '10 Pity Party: I'm Going, Are You?

BlogHer Food '10 Pity Party is my kind of party conference. It takes place entirely online, mostly on twitter, and scheduled sessions are conspicuously missing from the agenda. The agenda which, come to think of it, is also nowhere in evidence. You don't have to buy tickets or fly anywhere, nor pay for hotels, food, or cute new shoes. Sure, you also miss out on all the fun stuff that happens at conferences that happen in  a single physical locale: parties and noshes and swag, oh my!

That, my friends, is where the pity comes in. pity us

What does it have? The best thing ever: a rule saying snark is okay. Oh yeah., this is gonna be fun...

BlogHer Food '10 Pity Party is the brainchild of Karen and Chris, the good folks at the pêche. As they explain,  it's born of a longing for being in San Francisco with a few hundred of our closest friends at BlogHer Food '10. The party happens October 8th and 9th and there will be most of the usual trappings of web conventions: drinking, giveaways, cute shoes and a twitter hashtag. There may even be educational sessions, meaning maybe BlogHer is streaming theirs like International Food Blogger Conference (IFBC) did and we can peek in.

I interrupt this message for a public service announcement

In addition to the frivolity, BlogHer Food '10 Pity Party will serve a practical purpose. In case you missed it, the twitter stream on the IFBC tag was both useful to participants and often an absolute scream to read for those of us watching from home. Some of us at home joined in, asked questions, chatted with friends who were there and generally acted like it was twitter. Pretty weird, I know.

Between the folks at the conference and the ones at home - plus the nomads who were at the conference until they left in search of food and drink - traffic got crazy and the thread content got pretty fast and loose at times. Oh my, did it ever. Though I must point out that the oral sex joke on the big screen came from someone in the room. Even so, some attendees still glared our way like we were bad children. By using the #BHF10PP hashtag, the official BHF10 tag can remain unmolested which could go a long way to maintaining peace in the online food community.Thank you, Karen and Chris.

We now return you to your post already in progress.

If you are not attending BlogHer Food '10, and truth be told, that is almost all of us, won't you join us? As a late-night mage, I would particularly love some non-US folk so I have people to chat with late at night.

Interested? Here is all the information you need to play along.

• Register
• Follow our fearless leader, the pêche, on twitter for all the latest news.
• Grab some site bling if you are attending.
• Take a look at the list of prizes!
• Read the attendees deep thoughts and drunken meanderings on the Twitter hashtag: #BHF10PP. There is already chatter there, by the way, as new prizes roll in.
• Donate a prize. I did! If you wrote a food-related book, make food or cooking products, or have other goods or services to donate, contact Karen on twitter or via her site the pêche.

What are your plans for October 8-9th? Are you attending BlogHer Food '10 Pity Party, BlogHer Food '10, or doing something else entirely. Is it piteous? Are we piteous? Do you pity us? Please pity us...