Blast from the past. Here is some coverage of one of the many Thirst Thursday events I organised while on Computer Weekly.
The events were modelled on the First Tuesday events held in the days of the dot-com boom.
We sent out invites to IT professional a few days before the event and the events were always informal after work drinks with a pub quiz.
The commercial model was this: Computer Weekly would promote the event and organise it so we had the right feel and venue to the night (for IT programmers this was a room in a pub - in keeping with an after work drink). around 100 people would attend and a recruitment consultancy would sponsor the bar and send along some people who were only allowed to chat with attendees - NO formal presentations allowed.
It was a winning combination - bar cost about £1,500 a night and consultancies got placements.
The sponsor of the first event made £25,000 for placing a guy on in excess of £100,000.
We should have made more from it but the dot-com bubble burst so the event came to an end.