I know that the details of this year’s conference are yet to be announced, but I’d love to know whether the organizers are considering some form of more-or-less official jam session(s) as a part of the conference?
In 2024 the music chairs (Palle Dahlstedt and Laurel Pardue) came up with a “curated jam session” format, which I was lucky to be a part of as an active participant, and it was a very enjoyable experience. I believe that the opportunity to jam along other NIMErs and their instruments is a great way to get to know the real capabilities and constraints of our instruments, and also great fun. It would be really great if we could have more of that at the upcoming conference!
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Hey @krzysztof_cybulski , I love this!!
We could try to do something at the Loughborough London campus during the evening of the opening reception possibly, since that gives the most flexible time at a space where we don’t need to pack up early. What do you think about doing it on the 23rd before the main programme? I know some might not be around yet, I guess that’s my only thought. I can’t remember which evening Palle and Laurel did that during NIME2024…
Thank you for considering my suggestion!
As for the 2024 NIME jam, I think it was on thursday september 5th, well into the conference, after some of the evening performances at the Tivoli Vredenburg - Hertz. My perception was that initially there didn’t seem to be much interest in the event, but eventually there were more people eager to join than the “curated” format could accomodate, therefore I thought it would be great if this could be continued on forthcoming NIMEs. I’m just hoping I’m not the only one who feels this way.
From my perspective any date/time would be great, but I obviously don’t know the program of the conference yet, as well as one can never be so sure to attend the conference until the entries are accepted.
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Thanks!! This is good to know! We can definitely see about how we could do this again during the conference, I’ll write back with any updates once we have a better idea of the main programme and if/how this might be possible!
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Hi there @courtcourtaney and @krzysztof_cybulski ! Thanks for bringing up this topic Krzysztof , that jam session at NIME24 organised by @otoskope was so much fun. I too was lucky to be part of it, and I feel the audience responded very positively. We also had a very successful one in Brazil in 2019. I think initiatives like this are good for our community, not just for the fun and for brining people together (both important things indeed) but also to take instruments out of their planned pieces, presentations, and demos and just see what happens. So yes, happy to support any such initiative however I can!
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Hey! Not sure if you’ve seen the info in previous emails, but there’s space in the Open Day at Imperial on Saturday June 27 for an “Open Jack” and jam time 
Info here: Satellite Events
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Oh I see. Yes I actually I had read about it. It’s great that you’re making it happen during the satellite events, although in my humble opinion it would have deserved to be included in the main programme Not a complaint, I know this is a very big NIME and fitting everything in the programme has been a big challenge. Perhaps during the town hall meeting we can discuss if and how an improv session could become a recurring format for future NIMEs. See you in about ten days!
No no, I completely agree! Doing some musicking together would ideally be something in the main programme. The day programme is just so incredibly jam-packed this year, there’s almost no room for someones powerpoint slides to load up, let alone enough time for a meaningful jam session hahaha. We all did our best 
We should definitely talk together at the town hall about this, especially in the context of what we could do to support larger and larger conferences. The good thing is that our community is growing and with high-quality submissions (not too much of the LLM-wrapper papers that are inundating other venues near to NIME). Super excited to see you soon!
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@courtcourtaney Thanks once again for hearing me out and @federicovisi glad you did enjoy the 2024 jam, it’s great that both of you support the general idea of including a jam session as a vital part of future NIMEs. I appreciate that it wasn’t easy this year. Would be great to discuss the idea at the town hall meating. See you next week!
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