What: PechaKucha Night, Vol 12.
Where: Satellite, Alserkal Avenue.
When: Saturday November 24.

It was the morning after PechaKucha – as I flicked through the pics of the event, it all came flooding back. My blog buddies Marcella and Mandi Kingsbury came with me to the global event, a platform for young designers to meet, network and show their work in public. A PechaKucha presentation follows a 20 x 20 format: it allows each of the evening’s presenters to showcase 20 images – each shown for exactly 20 seconds.

It sounds nail-biting, but the crowd was remarkably chilled, a mix of young, arty and very interesting types lounging languidly on beanies and sofas.

When I reached the snaps of Simone Sebastian looking particularly pensive, I knew I’d found my first ink subject. Simone is the special projects manager at BRAG, and used to be a model and DJ. Clearly she is supersonically cool. She’s relocating to London fairly soon, so I thought I’d better grab the opportunity while I could. What luck that she was one of the PechaKucha presenters, as well as the host of the event.

Next, I tried to focus on the speakers for artistic inspiration.

I loved the fact they were discussing such a wide range of ideas and concepts. Subjects extended from the Dubai Roller Derby and new mobile and web apps to a project to create affordable backpacking in Dubai. Then there was the nostalgiaDXB web project, a crowd-sourced online archiving system focused on the creative subcultures of the city.

Yet it was the final crescendo that really caught my attention.

It was a local campaign called We Built This City, which aims to help celebrate National Day and encourage everyone to use photo app Instagram. Melina Mitri from S*uce decided to spice things up a bit by getting the whole audience standing up, clapping and laughing along to classic Starship tune ‘We Built this City’. It was hardly the way most events end in this town, but it was very appropriate and so much fun. It also reflected the clever concept behind PechaKucha.
For more of Hatty’s sketches and blog, see www.hattypedder.com.

Next week: Full Moon Yoga at Talise Spa, Madinat Jumeirah.