IndiMeet #FlipkartOutdoors – Bangalore 2016

I still firmly believe am the newbie in the Blogging World and there is a lot more opportunities the Blogging community provides to all its bloggers which comes as a surprise to me every single day.  Indiblogger was one such thing. Well to the non Indian friends of mine, it’s the biggest Indian blogging community where all the Indian Bloggers from different domains (Tumblr, Blogspot, WordPress) meet and share their views, posts and blogs. It helps you with writing challenges and contests, introduce you to other  bloggers from same kinda concept or a totally different one. You want to get inspired you should join Indiblogger is what i would religiously suggest to every Indian blogger out there.

As a new comer to the blogosphere, I registered my blog on this site and i can proudly say i have met some really cool bunch of people who are now friends and not just “follower” of my blog. And for this I am really thankful to the Indiblogger community. And as its logo correctly says – “Indians by birth, bloggers by choice” it is this big umbrella where we all feel at home.

So talking about Indiblogger what most excited me about this community was it organizes bloggers meet in different places in India where in all the people who are registered on the community site get a chance to meet and interact with fellow bloggers – NOW ISN’T THAT COOL??? HUH!! And yesterday was my FIRST EVER INDIBLOGGER MEET and it was AWESOMMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

#FlipkartOutdoors IndiBlogger Meet – Bangalore 2016

Having read about the previous meets i had a vague idea as to what its gonna be like  for example – A giant Sponsor like (Flipkart, Amazon, Snapdeal, Tata Indica , Dabur etc), the Indiblogger Team, some 50 odd bloggers, a conference room kinda thing, few speeches, games, contests, food , networking yeah pretty much this was what i had in mind. And then the #FlipkartOutdoors IndiBlogger Meet was announced where 140 people could register themselves and the event would be organized in Bangalore. I was super excited and the first thing i did was to register myself for the event. I was super excited to meet bloggers in person beyond the monitor screens and blogs. 

Date: 20th Feb 2016, Saturday Venue: Mango Mist Resorts Theme: This event promises to give you an adrenaline rush and a window into the world of some of the coolest gadgets around to help you make the most of your outdoor experiences. If you love nature and adventure, you wouldn’t want to miss this one! (from the event details) Prerequisites : You need to be a registered blogger on the Indiblogger website community to be a part of the event. 

I can’t stop telling this again and again but the Indiblogger team did a great job in organizing the whole event. Everything was scheduled and planned so properly that am sure nobody has anything to complain about.  All we had to do was register ourselves and be available at the pick up points mentioned in the mails sent my the team. Proper communication, double confirmation calls were made by this cool team.

** Disclaimer – am not that great at clicking pics, so am gonna post pics from the ones tweeted on Twitter by the different bloggers. So all the credits go to these bloggers for the clicks and amazing snaps . You could use the twitter handle #FlipkartOutdoors to check for the posts and updates from different bloggers present at the event**

On the day : My pick up was from Ulsoor where the bus start time was 7.15 am, waking up that early on a Saturday morning for an IT guy is a pain in the a**, i admit it we are lazy. I actually had last-minute thoughts of backing out just to get that good long sleep. But “stop procrastinating things” being one of my 2016 New Year Resolution i was at the stop on time. The buses were already waiting for us, nice well conditioned AC buses a relief in the approaching Bangalore summer now. There were few of the Indiblogger crew members in their black t-shirts with #BNLF written on the back and then the bloggers. We exchanged the hi’s and hello’s and then the core team , scanned the QR code we had received a day earlier in our mails to confirm the registration (yeah they do cool things unlike putting a tick on the attendance sheets 😛 )

the auto message we received when we checked in using the QR Code

Our ride to the venue

We reached the venue in the expected time and there were folks who came from the other stop in another bus. I had one blogger friend whom i had known well but not spoken i was excited to meet him and we were like “finally we meet” also i had made a friend in the bus i had come. Ohh i missed the core team were so sweet, they actually got water bottles and biscuits for everyone in the bus knowing that for sure we must have not had anything in the morning. Goodday biscuits to start with on a good day… hihhihi . We were given the wrist bands from mango mist so that it would be easy to use the different facilities provided there. Anoop gave us a walk through of the different things that was gonna happen for the day. And he clearly said it was not like how the other meets had taken place(the one i had in mind and written in the beginning) it’s going to be all in all an outdoor event totally. After a quick warm up fun exercise we headed straight for the breakfast buffet and once we were done we gathered back at the centre point. Anoop was there again with his whistle so that we all paid attention to him 😉 Then the Flipkart head , am sorry i missed his name told us about the different products that was put for display and the happy news that we get to use them as part of the days events unfold.

Briefing up

Team: We were then divided into seven teams of ten member each and that when i made my Blogger Friends 🙂 – Team 07

Twitter tweets was part of the mini contests as part of the event 🙂

Then we had one captain for each team our’s being Rajiv , i instantly connected with him cause he visited the Andaman Nicobar Islands – my hometown (I can be biased at times) and then there were others in my group Vinay (my blog friend), Rekha (first new friend in the meet), Reema, Farooq, Darpan, Ajay , Reeyan, Ankit,and Deepesh.

The products: Rajiv was handed over a sheet which had the mini competitions lined up for the day. There were six tables which had seven different products that would enhance any persons outdoor experience like the Samsung S2 gear watches (super cool stuff, its your mobile on your watch dial, health at hand you name it and they have it), RedChief Shoes (these were for the men), Altec Lansing Bluetooth Speakers (will post a video at the bottom of the page do check it out without fail), Polaroid Cube (this was my fav), Sony Action Cams (another hit in the crowd), Coleman Tents (they had a variety of things like tents, portable chairs and lavatory, water cans etc). 

Activities: After the briefing was done, each team got one each of these products which we need to use for the different competitions set for the bloggers, below is the list.

Different gadgets to be used

Then we were given the coupons of all the activities present in the resorts which we could enjoy. It was super fun. Everyone trying to experience the outdoor activities some who were damn good at it and some for whom it was the first time. People were having fun the whole day. Everyone was networking trying to know other bloggers, it was a brainstorming session going all around along with the fun games.

After lunch everyone gathered back at the central point at the whistle of Anoop and there were prize distributions for the mini events like setting up the Coleman tent fastest, rock climbing finishers, creative tweets etc. The last day of the event was the Paintball yeah !! We were again divided into team of eight and then we headed to the paintball ground. Paintball as always was fun. Our match was against the other half of our initial team so it was pretty funny that we were fighting it out among ourselves. But on the battle ground your team is your team and we had a good match. It was surprisingly a draw in our case cause we both defended our posts amazingly well.

As the day ended, people who were friends virtually were now shaking hands and exchanging goodbyes in person, people giving each other stay in touch messages, taking note of the bloggers mail id and blog details, hoping to meet next time in another meet everyone boarded the bus and were off to their homes with hearts filled with an experience of a lifetime(that specially for the first timers like me). Reiterating again, it was a well-organized event. A loud round of applause to the Indiblogger IndiCrew for putting up an awesome day out for us bloggers

It was an amazing experience, blogging to me has changed me as a person in so many ways. And meeting the folks from this community has even more encouraged and motivated me to continue this blogging journey of mine. Looking forward to another amazing IndiMeet to know another set of crazy bloggers!!!! 🙂 🙂 🙂

P.S: Nothing is complete without a perfect selfie 😉

More pics from the event – Photos

The Altec Lansing bluetooth speakers : Watch video here

Twitter handle for more info: #FlipkartOutdoors

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