I moved to Brighton almost seven years ago now. It’s funny, I still think of myself as a newcomer but I guess if you can remember the West Pier before it burned down, you can consider yourself a local.
Brighton has always had a great web/tech scene. While there’s no one big employer in the town, there are lots and lots of small agencies and freelancers. Rather than seeing one another as rivals, there’s a nice spirit of cooperation between all these geeks (helped in no small part by the Brighton New Media mailing list).
Lately, I’ve had the feeling that the scene has, if anything, improved. There are definitely more geek-related activities going on in Brighton. In fact, I’d say that on any given night of the week, Brighton would give London a run for its money.
Some friends of mine have put together a new site called Sussex Digital to aggregate all the geek-related activity into one place.
Scanning down the list of regular events reveals just how much is going on:
- Brighton Bloggers meetups,
- Brighton Coding Dojo nights,
- Brighton Girl Geek Dinners,
- Flash Brighton,
- Skillswap
- £5 App,
- …and more.
Recently I attended a Geek Wine Thing. On the same night there was a Flash Brighton meetup and an Agile Forum. I am, quite literally, spoiled for choice.
If you live in Brighton, be sure to check out the Sussex Digital website and subscribe to the events calendar. You can also get updates via Twitter.
I love the fact that Sussex Digital is a grassroots effort made by a couple of enthusiastic guys… that would be Josh and Dave then.