Excited for SteemFest?

If you answered, "yes," it is highly likely that your response is a direct result of @roelandp's hard work and enthusiasm.

"...when I was doing the dishes, it finally popped up to me: Steemit is great, how cool would it be if many Steemians from all over the world would meet in real life?" @roelandp wrote two months ago.

What started as a casual thought while scrubbing plates and bowls has turned into an inaugural three-day conference that will bring together hundreds of people from throughout the world who share a passion for Steemit. The speakers list alone includes: artists, developers, musicians, witnesses, a New York Times bestselling author and a Steemit co-founder.

But there wouldn't be this much anticipation from attendees and this much talent on the speakers list without an energetic and organized host. While everyone is chatting about how awesome SteemFest is going to be, Roeland is meeting with venue representatives, ordering printed materials, working on a mobile app, scouting out possible locations, confirming speakers, creating videos and much more.

Perhaps @ned said it best...

"Awesome work, Roeland. This will be one for the record books."

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20 questions with @roelandp

1 - How would you describe yourself in one sentence?

@roelandp - I'm a kitesurfer, computer-programmer with an interest in making stuff, which is used and liked by as many people as possible... with a "just-do-it" mantra.

2 - According to your “Introduce Yourself” post, you were born and raised in a windmill. It truly doesn’t get more Dutch than that! Have you enjoyed growing up in the Netherlands?

@roelandp - Yes, I think we are very lucky here. At least I am. People here tend to complain, but it's complaining on a level. Because look at the world on fire around you on the news, and you know we are all very lucky.

3 - How did you come up with the idea for SteemFest?

@roelandp - The whole Steemit start and vibe reminded me of the early days of Twitter, where you got to know so many new people in such a short time, but only online, and when we finally met in person it was epic. I still have many friends and acquaintances from that period. This idea of a global conference to enable Steemians to meet up kept bugging me and I started talking to some people from the community on Steemit chat regarding how they would feel about this. Overall the response was: "Great! When can I book my flight?" So i knew I hit a nerve here...

4 - Why Amsterdam?

@roelandp - A great relaxing place, for the first edition for me it was a no-brainer, as I live here, and can just move around on a daily basis to visit people. As I have a runtime of 2 months of dedication to this event, it's just easy for me that I can go and meet some locals and multiple venue visits by bike.

5 - What has been the single most difficult thing about organizing SteemFest?

@roelandp - Well the organizing is not done yet :) But so far it is the late nights, which can break up a bit. But as Steemit and its users are a global thing, when I try to go to bed, others become very active, so I extend my bedtime again. Here I am doing this interview at 1 AM :)

6 - The community seems thrilled about this event. What kind of feedback have you been receiving so far?

@roelandp - Only positive input and much help offered. Great help! The event is for Steem users, by Steem users. All presentations, workshops and panels are done by Steem users and almost all work is done by volunteers from the Steem community (camera work, interviews, live blogs, other help).

7 - At this point, how many people have bought tickets? How many tickets are left?

@roelandp - More than 170 people are attending at the moment. I have soft capped the venue at 300, but it could fit even more. I am very happy with a visitor count of 200 and onwards!

8 - What are you looking forward to most about SteemFest?

@roelandp - Just meeting everyone in real life! And to Sunday night when the job is done :)

9 - What is one place in Amsterdam that people need to check out while they’re down?

@roelandp - If weather permits, I'd say, go on a bike tour and just explore the city.

10 - What is one “traveler tip” for those who have never been to Amsterdam before?

@roelandp - Don't get tricked by crap taxi drivers. Take an Uber, or if you want to go to the SteemFest hotel, you can just take the subway! Public transport is cheap and very well arranged. Download an offline map of Google Maps on your phone.

11 - As a developer, you’ve made some pretty cool Steemit tools. Which creation in your Steem Profile are you most proud of?

@roelandp - Imho Radiosteem: not so much frontend but for me a great deal of work in the backend to make 1 automated script processing requests, validating them, getting songs, and pushing them to the queue.

12 - Your male make-up tutorial was hilarious, and we’ve seen your sense of humour in other posts as well. Has it always been important to you to make people laugh?

@roelandp - Sure.

13 - You rank #18 for followers on Steemit and have one of the highest reputation scores as well. How do you think you’ve earned such a solid following and reputation?

@roelandp - I've found my niche making nice, fun and useful apps around the blockchain we all came to love, which other people liked, and I think by having those trending posts one certainly gets up in the ranks.

14 - Congratulations on your first child! How are you able to balance everything you do for Steemit along with fatherhood? Do you ever sleep?

@roelandp - Thanks! Not that much recently. I've lost a couple of pounds, mostly due to SteemFest nowadays. Viggo, our son, is still a baby, and a very happy one, so he is quite easy to handle. My girlfriend and I have a natural mix nowadays of taking care of him and he goes to daycare 1 day in the week.

15 - Where is one place you’ve not yet been that is on the top of your list to visit?

@roelandp - South America, Russia, Australia / NZ, Japan, Africa. Can't pick.

16 - What is your favorite song?

@roelandp - Really bad at this stuff. I just listen to Radiosteem and its main curators @mamasitta and @kevinwong ;)

17 - Who is your favorite author?

@roelandp - I don't really have a favorite one; although, I can really laugh about Herman Brusselmans' books. Very pervy, very humorous.

18 - You get to have dinner with three people, living or dead. Who are you eating with?

@roelandp - My late grandfathers.

19 - What is your most embarrassing moment?

@roelandp - Maybe when at the Hotelschool (age 20 something) and I stole a box of candy bars from the storage room. I was running around with it and then hid in the closet before escaping to my student house. Later it became imminent that I was the guy who did that and I had to return it to the chef of the restaurant. Well-deserved punishment followed... I was really bad at that age, c'mon!

20 - What is one thing very few people know about you?

@roelandp - My password = 5 stars *****

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Thank you, Roeland, for taking part in "20 questions," but more importantly, for all of the effort you have put into SteemFest. I'm counting down the days until I fly over from Canada! It's going to be an incredible event.

As always, thanks to all of you for taking the time to read.

Who would you like to see me throw 20 questions at? Drop me a comment below and I'll work on setting up the interview.

If you like what you read, be sure to follow my blog!

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