TransparencyCamp is THIS Saturday and Sunday — April 28th and 29th — and it is sold out. We are going to have an enormous unconference about opengov on our hands, folks: As of Tuesday, April 24th, we sold 400 tickets and, based on the way the waitlist has grown since, we’re expecting a good deal more to join us. (Shh: Hear that? Although we were accounting for a 400 person conference, there is same-day registration available on site at Camp that will let you in if you didn’t manage to buy a ticket at time. Camp’s going to be cosy, but not uncomfortable.)

What can you expect from an enormous unconfernece? The same deal of energy, thoughtfulness, and commitment to community-driven community-building that TransparencyCamp has always relied on. To us, the sudden uptick in numbers (last year’s unconference broke all previous records, gathering up 278 people by the time the weekend was over) is evidence of increasing recognition in the relevance of transparency to different fields of advocacy and policy (especially in an election year), and the ever broadening network of people inside and out of government working to advance transparency and public access to public information (open data). This video from last year’s Camp gives a good snapshot:

For those of you who can’t make it this weekend, fear not. It’s not the full TCamp experience, but we will be posting some video of recorded sessions online post-Camp. In addition, during TCamp, we expect to have a Google Hangout running and, of course, our Twitter engine in full steam: Catch “official” TransparencyCamp tweets from @TCampDC and follow #TCamp12 for the general flow of conversation.

All of us here at Sunlight look forward to meeting you this weekend, to thinking through the challenges, successes, and next steps for opengov — and to having fun. Considering how serious an unconference about open government could be, I’m always astounded and energized by the playfulness and interactivity of Camp. I hope you will be, too!

Can’t wait to start meeting people? Join our Google Group — http://groups.google.com/group/transparencycamp — and/or catch up on our “Guess Who’s Coming to TCamp” series, where you can meet: Beth Sebian, Matej Kurian, Michael Mulley, Maria Baron, Marko Rakar, Dondon Parafina, Wong Aung and three of our awesome Transparency Camp Scholars.

See you Saturday!