Expectations for the first Tech Fair LA were high.
Hosted at The Reef in DTLA, the event was billed as LA's biggest tech job fair ever, with well over 11,000 registered guests, more than 250 companies and a stacked roster of expert speakers.
Created by the Office of Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and the City's Entrepreneur in Residence Jason Nazar, CEO of Santa Monica-based Comparably, Tech Fair LA certainly met its lofty expectations. Lines of at least 1,000 attendees wrapped around the corner until early in the evening, and the list of participating companies was a veritable who's who of tech companies in not just LA, but California altogether. Here's what we learned from the event.
Not everyone needs a job, but that doesn't mean they aren't looking
While the event was billed a job fair, it didn't mean you needed to be actively looking for a job to attend. At the beginning of his panel entitled "how to advance your career," Nazar asked the gathered crowd of a few hundred who was looking for jobs. Only about half raised their hands.
With well over 200 companies in attendance, the rows were packed with interested parties waiting to chat with some of the brightest startups in the area. At times, it felt more like an actual festival than a job fair, but that could have been due to set-ups from Joymode, which had a life-sized Jenga and Connect Four for visitors to play, or Jam City, which had a spinning wheel that offered guests prizes.
No one was too cool to attend
More impressive than the sheer volume of startups in attendance was the diversity of industries represented. The most popular booths had to belong to SpaceX, Hyperloop One and Snapchat, but sprinkled amongst the dozens of booths were a few outliers. Amazon Web Services, YouTube and Tesla were among a handful of Silicon Valley-based startups to make their presence in the City of Angels known.
The Mayor's tech focus is paying off
In addition to the number of companies participating in the event and the crowd of guests who made the trek downtown was a very obvious media presence, and we're not talking about local networks, either. Given the notoriety of some of the attendees, the security was definitely not light, with deputies patrolling as far north as STAPLES Center.
Image via Facebook.
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