This is a cool creative geek fest, I think the 3rd year in KC. Is one of few and apparently largest in Midwest - MSP, Chicago and Ann Arbor have smaller ones with under 50 presenters. There were about 130 KC makers presenting last year. The fest started in Bay Area by Make magazine and KC was one of first expansions. Is one few that is 2 days - June 23/24 at Union Station.

http://www.makerfairekc.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... Yjq2xfVDFg

Order tickets here (scroll down to Maker Faire)...
https://www.unionstation.purchase-ticke ... om/public/

Maker Faire is this weekend at Union Station. Get early bird tickets by June 21 as price then goes up. Not sure of the connection but Yelp will be there too.

Ticket price includes admission to Science City too.

Maker Faire: Kansas City - Tickets


Here is the program (timed events outside of the maker booths). Seems much bigger than last year.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/335099/USKC/Ma ... m_2012.pdf

No geeks on this site?

A KC Maker Faire review made it on geek.com...

Some of the awesomeness you missed at the Kansas City Maker Faire

Turned out to be the 4th largest Maker Faire in US, almost twice as many makers as last year. There were too many people who packed into Union Station but it's such a great venue so I hope they keep it there. if it gets too big, they should probably start a juried show and allow only 200 entries. Should keep the show more interesting than watered down.

I was there. It was pretty fun and terrific to see Union Station with so much activity. There were some Amtrak riders who I'm sure were a little peeved to be released into such a packed crowd, but it probably also left an impression on those who were in KC for the first time. Among all of the cool tech items there, I think I was most impressed by the Urban Farming Guys. That tank with the plants above it was pretty amazing, yet so simple.

My hope is that in the future, they limit the number of 3d printing stations. It is really cool, but I did not need to see it 15 times.

Union Station should try and schedule all their major events at times when Amtrak is dropping off passengers.

I went for the first time this year....I wasn't at all impressed....way too much of the same thing it seemed or just people hawking weird stuff.

It usually only makes sense when you talk to people and ask how they made it, which can be a problem when it's too crowded. A friend of mine took his 8-12yo kids and they weren't too interested at first but then they started to talk to the makers and got into it. They ended up staying 5 hours. They are looking forward to next year's.

The format is right but now they have too many watered down entries and need to jury it down to 200 entries. They need to start thinking quality vs quantity. It's a good problem to have. Most faires are under 50 entries.

I took my kids both days, and we had a good time. Some goofy stuff, some cool stuff. Funny, they loved just having huge boxes of legos to play with, which they have at home, but there's a certain freedom to having hundreds of red bricks all the same size that you don't get with the sets usually.

Your kids were probably just glad to be taken somewhere other than a funky ethnic food market - Legos were a bonus!