Ping pong, foosball, dodgeball, sumo wrestling, virtual reality, beer pong, arcade games, FIFA, Settlers of Catan, giant jenga, tricycle races, donut walls, networking, and a whole lot of fun.
Yes, it was an epic geek carnival.
The 2017 GeekWire Bash was the biggest and most epic party we’ve hosted yet, as we welcomed more than 1,700 of you inside the CenturyLink Field Event Center in Seattle to celebrate our sixth anniversary.
Kudos to team @Geekwire for an awesome event yesterday! Food, drinks, ping pong, dodgeball, the #GWBash had it all ????
— Mikey Tom (@mikeytom) March 16, 2017
Off to the races! Happy 6th birthday, @Geekwire. Thanks for hosting a great event! #GWBash pic.twitter.com/QRFecvGCXO
— Avalara (@avalara) March 16, 2017
The hero a city needs poses with @SoundersFC goalie Stefan Frei. Captain GeekWire! Shields up! #GWBash pic.twitter.com/9qMR8W9zdn
— Geeman Yip (@GeemanYip) March 16, 2017
Check out some of our favorite moments from last night's #GWBash .@geekwire pic.twitter.com/fRwOomaMKR
— Qumulo (@qumulo) March 16, 2017
There were a bevy of activities that attendees enjoyed, including the ping pong, foosball, and dodgeball tournaments, but also many other fun games.
From tricycle races to jumbo beer pong, the 2017 GeekWire Bash was a blast.
The Bash also hosted its first Settlers of Catan tournament, which pitted eight expert board gamers against each other in a four-hour battle of will and strategy. Adrian Pike of Navigating Cancer took first place with a perfect 20 points, followed closely by AJ Hans of Venbit Business solutions with 19. They both earned a spot in the regional Catan tournament at this summer’s Dragonflight conference.
The most spirited company at the Bash was certainly Smartsheet, which brought out more than 100 employees who were donning custom-made shirts that saluted its Next Tech Titan honor at the GeekWire Awards this past May.
It was fun once again welcoming some of Seattle’s top soccer players, as Stefan Frei, Aaron Kovar, Bryan Meredith, and Harry Shipp from the Sounders FC played a few games of FIFA with attendees and tested some virtual reality technology. They also brought along the MLS Cup trophy for attendees to check out.
It was hilarious watching folks go at it in the sumo wrestling ring, including GeekWire co-founder Todd Bishop taking on KING5’s Chris Cashman in a Seattle media duel.
Media titans @toddbishop getting ready to throw down with @ChrisCashman from @KING5Seattle at #GWBash pic.twitter.com/YmTMlX3cK8
— Bill Hankes (@bhankes) March 15, 2017
DODGEBALL
As always, there was intense competition on the ping pong and foosball tables, as well as the three dodgeball courts that featured 32 spirited teams representing some of the region’s top companies. Zillow beat Redfin in a highly-anticipated first round match between two of Seattle’s online real estate titans.
In the championship, the striped-polo clad employees from AHT Insurance took down the Seattle-based real-time IT analytics company ExtraHop in a spirited 3-1 win in the best of five series.
PING PONG
It was our largest pool of ping pong players yet, with hundreds of people battling out on three separate brackets: beginner, intermediate, and expert.
The expert bracket featured some of the region’s top players and some insane skills that were certainly on display during the final match that pitted Akvelon’s Valeri Kim against Slalom’s Brian Chia — a rematch of last year’s championship between two friends who also happen to be practice partners that play on a weekly basis.
The expert final in ping pong is extra beautiful in slo-mo #GWBash pic.twitter.com/C5MFledY5X
— GeekWire (@geekwire) March 16, 2017
The final match went down to the wire, with Kim and Chia hitting near-impossible shots that had the crowd ooh-ing and ah-ing. Ultimately Chia defended his title, ousting Kim in a three-set nailbiter.
In the massive intermediate ping-pong bracket, the largest tournament at the GeekWire Bash this year, Christopher Hegstrom of Technicolor emerged victorious over a field of 64 competitors, defeating Carl Taylor of Fulcrum Technologies in a hard-fought final match.
Fulcrum employees boast some serious ping-pong skills, because the company also had a competitor in the finals of the beginner ping-pong tournament at the event this year. Chris Cushman of Fulcrum was the winner in that bracket, beating Robin Choi in the finals.
FOOSBALL
We had some great competition on the foosball tables as well. It was brothers from BrandVerity — Kip and Preston Holland — who took down their colleagues Mason Smith and Keegan Runnals. It’s pretty clear which Seattle startup plays the most foosball in the office.
The intermediate final went down to the wire, with Brett Mauro and Jon Grus of Zillow ousting Andrew Choi and Luke Gabrieli of Peach in a three-set thriller.
A big thanks to our gold sponsors for helping to make the GeekWire Bash event possible: CenturyLink, Qumulo, Moz, Sirqul, Flowroute, ReachNow, OfferUp, Avalara and Smartsheet.
Also, thanks to silver sponsors: Moss Adams, Taser/Axon, Fred Hutch Obliteride, First Tech Federal Credit Union, EY, Avvo, Big Fish Games, Wealthsimple, Perkins Coie, Realogics Sotheby’s, Capital One, Woot, Impinj and HomeAdvisor.
We’ll have more highlights from the Bash in the coming days. In the meantime, enjoy some more photos below, including some fun ones from the photo booth. Once again, thanks so much for joining us for the GeekWire Bash.
Note: Caption for Christopher Hegstrom of Technicolor corrected since original post.
