Okay, tonight is the night! This is a bit of an update to the Meet Me At The Museum post. Here are some more details for all you Triangle Tweetup attendees. I’m just going to break it down with a quick list.

• Parking: Park in the Blue Ridge visitors lot (to the right) or main Museum parking lot (to the left), your choice. Both locations have paved walkways to the event.
• Site: The tweetup will be held outdoors beside the West Building. Just follow the posters to the Star Tent.
• Cost: Tweetup cost is $6 cash per guest, collected at the registration table. No need to print your RSVP ticket, we’ll have a list at the door. You’ll get a badge for entry to the movie, plus goodies like custom tweetup T-shirt and museum exhibit tickets!
• Learn: Look for Jennifer, Chad and Melissa to learn more about current and upcoming Museum exhibits and collections. They are are smart and passionate about art!
• Winning: You’ll get a raffle ticket to win cool things including Museum membership, Hot tickets to upcoming exhibits like Rembrandt in America and other surprises! NCMA is the only museum to see the new Rembrandt collection on the east coast this year.
• Yum: The @OnlyBurger food truck will be parked right beside the tweetup. They accept cash or credit. We heart their burgers and you will too! (Remember to #BackTheTrucks Raleigh!)
• Drinks: Choose from 3 flavors of awesome NC Beer courtesy of the excellent Lone Rider and Natty Greene’s! Southern Pale Ale, Guilford Golden Ale and Shotgun Betty Hefeweizen. We’ll also provide plenty of water. Please stay hydrated and drink responsibly!
• Explore: The Tweetup is an outdoor social and movie viewing but feel free to wander off through the West Building or walking trails if you want to go exploring with your friends.
• Snaps: The West Building features a photo friendly museum policy. Snap away and share your favorite pieces. Just leave the tripod and flash at home.
• Watch: The Social Network movie screening starts at 8:30pm. Your tweetup badge is your admission ticket. Here are some handy tips for the outdoor theater. Bring a blanket or chair.
• Tagging: Hashtag your photos and tweets with #ncmatweetup or #triangletweetup or both – we can’t wait to see your tweets and crazy movie commentary.
• Thanks: Be sure to tweet some love and thanks to our partners and sponsors who make the event possible! See the list in the sidebar of this blog. Here is a handy twitter list to help with the thanks: Your hosts, Jennifer (@jenniferwarner) and Chad from NCMA @ncartmuseum, Sumit and Skylar from @loneriderbeer in Raleigh, Sue (@NattySueRal) and Brandon (@nattysRalBrando)  from @natty_greenes brewery in Raleigh and Greensboro, and Brian (@bpfitzny) from @thesoringroup.
• Hosts: Say hello to your Triangle Tweetup organizers: Ryan Boyles (@theRab), Jeff Cohen (@JeffreyLCohen) and Jen Nixon (@Jennix5).
• Later: Connect with the museum online on their blog as well as twitter, facebook and flickr. We’ll curate and post the recap of all the fun. Please share your blog links etc.

Did I miss something? Please drop any last minute comments on Twitter to @TriangleTweetup.

We want you to experience something new and have fun. See you all tonight!
– Ryan

I want to meet you at the Museum. We’re hosting the Triangle Tweetup on August 19th. We’re very excited to team up with the digital marketing team at the North Carolina Museum of Art for the Tweetup this Friday night. There has been so much going on this summer, we though it would be neat to have a chance to slow things down and chill out at the art museum with a few old friends and maybe some new acquaintances. This is also a perfect chance to explore the uber modern West Building expansion. Bring your friends or a date. Bring your camera or smart phone. The new museum is photo friendly if you haven’t heard about it. We made this Triangle Tweetup the best low-cost way to spend your Friday night. Bring your blanket or chairs to watch The Social Network at 8:30 after the browsing and mingling portion of the Tweetup. For only $6 you will get an exclusive NCMA Triangle Tweetup t-shirt, 2 exhibit tickets to 30 Americans (for a return visit), admission to the summer series movie The Social Network that night, three thirst-quenching NC beer selections from Lone Rider and Natty Greene’s, and a raffle ticket to win a deluxe Art Museum prize pack. We set up an RSVP page on Eventbrite to pre-register and ask that you bring six bucks cash at the door (we did this to hold down the ticketing admin costs!). And come hungry too. The Only Burger food truck will be parked right outside of the West Building to provide dinner if you need a tasty, tasty dinner. Trust me, Only Burger lives up to the name. The Tweetup starts at 7pm at the West Building. See you at the Museum Friday night!

And as always, be sure to follow the great folks that help make the Tweetups happen!
@NCArtMuseum
@thesoringroup
@Loneriderbeer
@natty_greenes & @nattysueral
@onlyburger
@socialfresh
@triangletweetup

(Hint: scroll through and “Load more” to see all the action)

• A social contest announcement from our sponsor CarMax with chances to win iPad 2s. That’s right, plural.
• You are the Photobooth this year! Use your favorite social photo sharing apps: Instagram, Color, Foursquare, etc. to answer questions with other people in the form of a photo. Share it on twitter and win!
• Wii “Just Dance” Off – Get your team together now! Win gift cards and certs. Team Brooks Bell… Team Capstrat… Team Bronto… Who’s gonna bring it?!
• DJ Hero Battle – Think Guitar Hero face off but with 2 Turntables! Head to head DJ battle with mashed up music.
• Tribe discussion – What are the best examples of local companies adding game components to their products or marketing? Gamification, get it? What are the best national / global brand examples of social engagement through gamification? GaGaVille anyone? 
• Learn more about a high stakes race to create something great – with real opportunity: Triangle Startup Weekend.
• Ask a Bronto expert about how to win at Email marketing, you know if you’re into that whole ROI thing.

The tweetup is going to be a lot of fun. Food, beer and drinks will be provided by the awesome folks at Bronto and Tyler’s Taproom. Giveaways for gamers!! Free RSVP is still open. This parking help is handy. We’ll see you at Bronto at 7pm tonight!

CarMax has been in Raleigh for more than a decade now. Recently the company launched new online functionality, but only in the Raleigh/Durham and Fayetteville areas. Now customers in these areas can hold a vehicle, schedule a test drive, apply for financing, initiate and pay for a transfer, select a MaxCare extended service plan, schedule an appraisal and get started on paperwork — all from any computer anywhere.

At this month’s TriangleTweetup, CarMax will launch a month-long social contest and throughout the month will give away iPad2s to four lucky winners. CarMax Raleigh Sales Manager David Brown will also give us a sneak peek at the new ads promoting CarMaxEasyShop.

Go ahead and start following @carmaxeasyshop to learn more about CarMax EasyShop. They’ll be live tweeting from the event and happy to hear early feedback from Tweet Up attendees on CarMax EasyShop and the contest.

• Here is a handy map to illustrate the lay of the land.
• Arrive early. Free parking is available so come on down. Doors open at 6:45 at Bronto. Street parking is highlighted in yellow on the map.
• There are 3 parking decks available – for a fee of $4. Your call. See map.
• Take a gander at a Google map from the Eventpage page or the American Tobacco parking guide if needed.
• Look for the precession of inflatable Brontosaurus toys. Don’t worry, they don’t bite. That’s your sign you’re in the right place.
• It’s Suite 410. It’s best to enter from the North side, shown on the map about where the B is in Bronto.

There you go, if you have questions or get lost – hey, feel free to tweet @BrontoCaroline or me @theRab on the day of the big event. If you haven’t RSVP’ed yet – what are you waiting for? Do it. Bring friends. We have so many cool activities planned! More on that in the next post.

This June 3-5, 2011, Triangle Startup Weekend is back (discount tickets are available here until May 4th) and will be held in the heart of the entrepreneurial community, the American Tobacco Campus, in Bay 7 on Friday and Sunday, and in the Tobacco Underground on Saturday (when everyone is hacking). Along with the usual festivities – pitching startup ideas to the crowd, forming teams around the highest vote getters and then building working web and mobile products over the course of the weekend – this year’s event has come awesome bonuses:

1. Local startup rockstars in the mix – Already confirmed as speakers, mentors or judges are such notable entrepreneurial community pillars as David Jones and Jason Caplain from SouthCap, Joe Colopy from Bronto, and Nathaniel Talbott from the Raleigh Ruby Brigade, just to name a few (the current full list is posted on the site). Also, if you haven’t seen George Junginger from Groupstory MC a Startup Weekend event, it’s a sight to behold in and of itself.

2. Location, location, location – Bay 7 and the Tobacco Underground are awesome event spaces and with this kind of capacity you can be sure to expect a great turnout. Which in turn = lots of awesome people, ideas and collaboration.

3. Off-the-clock Events – The first 75 people to buy tickets will accompany the organizing committee, top team and VIPs to the Durham Bulls game on Sunday, where they will all party in a private Startup Weekend deck that evening. Also hearing early reports of a Saturday night Pub Crawl in downtown Durham, and of course who knows what sleep-deprived entrepreneurs will come up with to fill the time in the late night hours.

So if you’ve got an entrepreneurial bug, odds are this event is a can’t miss for you. And there’s still time to get the discounted tickets until May 4th at http://triangle.startupweekend.org/tickets/

. Join us at the Tweetup on May 19th to discuss the event with Startup Weekend veterans or recruit new team members to make your start dream a reality.

It must be Springtime. It’s tweetup time. Bronto is hosting the first Triangle Tweetup of the year at their offices in the American Tobacco complex in downtown Durham. This is now an annual tradition with our friends at Bronto and we are looking for ways to celebrate local creativity through social networking at the tweetup. Give your ideas in the comments on twitter hashtagged #triangletweetup. We’ll share more event details in the weeks leading up to the event to be held May 19th. Be sure to RSVP on eventbrite and be sure to share the event link with your friends and followers on twitter. There are already over 60 people joining us! It will be a fun evening.

See you there!
@theRab, @JeffreyLCohen, @BrontoCaroline

Agenda

6:45 doors open and registration at Bronto Software Inc

Welcome 7:15

Tweetup Improv by Zach Ward of DSI Comedy Theater – if you have never seen Zach do improv you don’t want to miss this and for everyone else, you know Zach is going to be funny and awesome.

Application Demos:

• Jazzy Chad – Notifo & Pushly (Also welcome back to NC @JazzyChad! )
• Lawrence Ingraham – @LawPower – TriOut – Something new you’ve been asking for.
• BlogAds – @TheBlogads –  Twiangulate.com and taghive.com
• Anil Chawla - Tweetymail
• Donald McMillan – Schmap

Photo by: John Rees

Social Media 101 Workshops:

• Email Marketing
• Twitter
• Facebook

Photography by:
@josh_hofer and @jreesnc - You might have your next great avatar shot at the #TriangleTweetup.

The hashtag is always: #TriangleTweetup

Photo by bronto software

Your Entry fee: Reminder to support the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina:
We’re supporting the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina, as they kick off the Kids Summer Stock Program and asking everyone to bring two cans of food. Here’s a list of the most needed items (PDF).

More news to be announced this week later this week and we have received tweets that our past #TriangleTweetup King and Queen will be present looking to crown a new King and Queen for 2010.

We’re looking for a few more sponsors for the event, if you’re interested please email us at contact@ourhashtag.com or call 919-200-0929

The event, co-hosted by the organizers of Triangle Tweetup, will be held in the Folk Festival Tent from 7 to 9 p.m. on Food Lion Hunger Relief Day.

“We’ve built great relationships over the past year with our social media followers, and we wanted to organize an event that would help them enjoy the Fair in a new social way,” said Wesley Wyatt, fair manager.

During the Deep Fried Triangle Tweetup, attendees will be able to sample deep-fried Fair food, interact with Fair entertainers, participate in a Twitter-themed scavenger hunt and enter to win prizes throughout the night. The event is part of a growing trend of events where participants have face-to-face gatherings with people they follow on social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook. It is also one of the first Tweetups hosted by a state fair.

The co-host, OurHashtag, has held 10 Triangle Tweetups during the past two years. The company’s partners Wayne Sutton, Jeff Cohen, Ryan Boyles and Kipp Bodnar are active members in the local social media community, and have planned several social media events including Ignite Raleigh and monthly Triangle Social Media Club meetings. Past Triangle Tweetups have included a charitable component to the main event.

“By holding the Tweetup on Hunger Relief Day, we are able to gather at the Fair without charging a registration fee, and can continue to help our community through charitable contributions,” Sutton said. Anyone who brings four cans of food to the Fair on Thursday, Oct. 22 will get in to the Fair for free.

The N.C. State Fair was the first fair to use Twitter, and currently connects with fairgoers on a variety of social media sites, including:

• Deep Fried @ the N.C. State Fair Blog: www.ncstatefair.org/blog
• Twitter: www.twitter.com/ncstatefair
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/ncstatefair
• MySpace: www.myspace.com/ncstatefair

The Deep Fried Triangle Tweetup is one of several new activities added this year to appeal to the state’s tech-savvy community. Other events include the TXT-O-LYMPIX texting competition and nightly video game contests.

More information about the Fair can be found at www.ncstatefair.org. Space is limited to the first 500 registrants.

There is a brief agenda for the evening, followed by plenty of socializing (or networking if you’re looking for work or clients). First, we want to publicly congratulate Jazzy Chad on his new gig with Twitter. Don’t worry, he’s staying in Raleigh, and will be helping them out part-time. According to this blog post (written by former Triangle resident, Twitter employee and our friend Doug Williams), Chad was such an integral part of the Twitter community in both his creation of Tweetgrid and his customer support, that Twitter took notice.

The second item is the use of professional tools for Twitter. With the new release of the Twitter 101 Guide for Business, and the current crop of tools to manage not just one account, but multiple accounts, we will discuss what works for different cases and why. This is the perfect opportunity to learn more about Twitter, and other social media tools, for your company. Bring your questions and your networking skills. Tweetups have a great mix of people with a variety of experiences.

And finally, we will also get psyched up for Ignite Raleigh, which is happening Wednesday. We hope to see you there, but if not, we’ll probably see you somewhere this week.

Thanks,
The OurHashtag Team
Wayne, Kipp, Jeff, Ryan

Agenda (beta)

7:00 p.m. Triangle Tweetup starts
7:10 p.m. Welcome & Announcements (Triangle Tweetup Team )
7:20 p.m.  Bronto host  welcome by Joe Colopy @Colopy , CEO of Bronto @Bronto

Capture Carolina welcome and introduction from Will Hardison @CaptureCarolina

7:25 p.m. Panel:  Brands, Business and Twitter moderated by Kipp Bodnar @kbodnar32

Panelists:

• Dave Thomas, @DavidBThomas, SAS, Social Media Manager
• Thor Kessler, @RaleighGrande, Raleigh Grande Movie Theater, General Manager
• Ryan Boyles, @theRab, IBM, Project Zero Community Manager
  
• Spencer Dempsey, @DurhamChamber, Research & Information Coordinator, Greater Durham Chamber of Commerce

7:50 p.m. Announcements:

Mike Rundle @Mik9r announcing: Beak a new mac twitter app.

Heather O’Sullivan, @HeatherO coworking in Apex

Ryan Boyles,  Raleigh Twestival charity recap and update. Plus a video sneak peek from Ignite Raleigh.

Iconfactory: Twitterrific 2.0 for the iPhone 1st public demo.

8:15 p.m. Social:
Don’t worry, this will go by fast and after all the speakers it will be time for tweeting, drinking, eating and networking.

Reminders:

Door prizes will be announced next week along with contest rules, be sure to follow @TriangleTweetup for updates.

@josh_hofer who took the awesome photos at the last Triangle Tweetup will be taking pictures again for the tweetup photo booth.

Bring your Toiletries to help out the local homeless shelter, more information here: Donate Toiletries at the Triangle Tweetup to help local homeless shelter

The hashtag for the event is #TriangleTweetup … we should be trending by 7:20 …

As of  4:00 p.m we have 137 tweeple register to attend. If you have not registered it’s free and you can do so by going here: http://triangletweetup20.eventbrite.com

If you’re interested in becoming a sponsor of TriangleTweetup.org  see the sponsor page or email community@triangletweetup.org

A big thanks to the other Triangle Tweetup team members: @dgtlpapercuts @ginnyskal @kbodnar32 @theRab @ToAsTySnAcKs for being awesome!

@WayneSutton

And here is the list of door prizes:

Blu Seafood (Twitter: @bluseafood): $25 Restaurant Gift Certificate

Bronto (Twitter: @Bronto): BrontoNation Gift Packs

Carrboro Creative Coworking (Twitter: @CarrboroCowork): T-Shirt (woman size only)

Chatham Journal (Twitter: @chathamnc): Coffee Mugs and Hats

Claustrophobia (iTunes link) (Twitter: @sonofalink): Promo Code for Free iPhone game

Crazy Like That (Twitter: @crazylikethat) T-Shirt with buttons & stickers

DSI Comedy Theater (Twitter: @DSIComedy) Improv 101 Class and Comedy Show Tickets

Edward McKay (Twitter: @EdMcKay) $25.00 Bookstore Gift Certificate

LoneRider Beer (Twitter: @LoneRiderBeer): 1 growler (64 oz) to be filled at the LoneRider’s brewery.

Raleigh Grande (Twitter: @RaleighGrande) Movie Tickets

Schmap: T-Shirt and iTunes Gift Card

Wilmington/Cape Fear Visitor’s Bureau (Twitter: @visitcapefearnc): Summer is Almost Here Beach Packs

Make sure you thank our door prize sponsors with Tweet love. Items listed subject to change.

If you would like attend Triangle Tweetup 2.0 and was not able to register, please leave a comment below and we’ll be in touch if things changes. You will be contacted in the order of comment date.

Also a big thank you to those who have registered already.

UPDATE: 4/21/09
After doing a site review we have opened registration for an additional 50 tickets. You can register here: http://triangletweetup20.eventbrite.com