Safe to say that I’ve been a little bit stressed for the past month. Rather than spending my days meeting people over coffee in Small Batch on Jubilee St, I’ve been sat behind my computer at home on the phone to Marc, Digby and Richard to work out the technical and curatorial aspects of this year’s TEDxBrighton.

Part of what makes any TED or TEDx event a fantastic experience is the way that each talk bounces off the last and propels the audience forward to the next. The ideas worth spreading feed into each other, creating an overwhelming sense of inspiration that each audience member takes with them from the event… Or at least, that’s how I felt after attending TEDxBrooklyn in 2010 and TEDxSussexUniversity earlier this year.

I enjoy TED(x) because it promotes the serendipitous collision of ideas. So when I began working with the team to select and contact speakers a few months ago, there was (and still is) the pressure to deliver a great event that lives up to my own – as well as everyone elses’ – expectations. Pressing send on a few emails this morning and Digby launching the speaker page made my heart jump into my throat… We have a fantastic line up of speakers (more to be announced soon) and I’m looking forward to sharing the themes and ideas of their talks with you; from code literacy to sharing economies, writing and music as intergenerational tools, dementia, colour, life and culture… And it doesn’t stop there!

But for TED and TEDx events, the audience are as vital as the speakers themselves. TEDx is a global community composed of individuals from diverse nations, cultures and backgrounds and the TEDxBrighton audience will be the proponents for carrying ideas worth spreading – who can take new perspectives and apply them to their communities and workplaces.

There was a great reception for TEDxBrighton 2011, to which Tom Bailey and his team found themselves inundated with applicants for a limited number of tickets – so one of our team’s goals for this years event was to carry on the success and open the event up to a larger audience. Having TEDster, Marc Koska on board has allowed us to do exactly that – but a larger audience means a larger venue and unfortunately that comes with a price. Whilst the inaugural TEDxBrighton was a free event, to cover the cost of the venue hire we will be charging £30 for tickets this year – though in a similar style we will be asking applicants to fill out a form (as you would for a TED / TEDGlobal event) – opening August 27th – before allocating tickets so that we can try to ensure a demographically diverse audience across generations.

I really hope that we can deliver a great TEDxBrighton 2012 and the team and myself are really proud to announce our first round of speakers; we hope that you will join us on October 26th to share their ideas worth spreading.