Maker Faire Rome unaffected by Maker shutdown. The event takes place 18 to 20 October with Call for Makers closing 8th July

Update – The Call for Maker will be extended to the 8th of July in part by popular demand in part because The Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities wants to receive projects on the topic of Cultural Heritage and related technologies.

Financial troubles have forced Maker Media, the company behind Make: magazine and the national Maker Faire, shut down a few days ago.

This has led to confusion over up and coming Maker Faire events. From what I can gather Maker Media was only directly responsible for the Maker Faire Bay Area and New York Maker Faire with other Maker Faires operating by licence. So, if the Faire has already had the licence issued, they should be allowed to go ahead. Most of these licenced Faires operate their own sponsorship and ticket sales so they should be financially independent from Maker Media. How this will affect the Faires in future years is unknown, well-established events could splinter off and form their own named event.

In Europe, the Rome Maker Faire is the largest maker event of its kind with over 700 exhibitors and over 100k visitors they are a public body and are founded by the Minister of The Economic Development via Italian Trade Agency.

So, if you are in Europe and always fancied the idea of Maiker Faire I would strongly advise going this year.

As fair as these events go, you couldn’t get a better location than Rome, possibly one of the most beautiful cities in the world with some of the best cuisine and amazing weather, it is the perfect city to host the Maker Faire, and I hope to attend myself this year.

The event is held at the Fiera di Roma which is a 50 mins train ride from the Roma Termini or 30 mins from Roma Ostiense. So you can do more than just the Faire and make a holiday of it, visiting the beautiful sites of Rome.

Maker Faire Rome has a strong business and networking focus, and it is the ideal opportunity to make connections, learn things, and try and get your work out in front of investors.

Calls for Makers are open until the 24^th of June

Call for Makers is a big part of all Maker Faires, it launched on the 3^rd of April, and the final call is the 24^th of June.

The Call for Makers is the application process for people wanting to exhibit their business, projects or work.

Maker Faire Rome is looking for people that are passionate about all sorts of things including inventing, electronics, robotics and AI, health and quality of life, sustainability, open source, and much more.

You can participate in several ways:

• Projects worth exhibiting: selected applicants will be given a pre-set free booth (table + chairs) inside the exhibiting halls, strategically located so to be visited by the large audience that attend Maker Faire Rome right for the sake of discovering interesting projects.
• Amazingly entertaining presentations: selected applicants will be given a free room (or a stage) to give project presentation/speech, tell a story, engage the audience in the issue they are keen to discuss.
• Super cool workshops: selected applicants will be assigned a workshop area where they could hold interactive sessions and engage participants – adults and / or children – in “hands on” activities.
• Performances: selected applicants will be given a free space (or a stage) for them to perform in creative, technological, robotic, musical, pyrotechnic performance.

To find out more information about Maker Faire Rome check out their website.

For Call to Maker applications, you can find more information here.