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Six people trampled in foodfight at Le Web

Boris Written on 9th December 2008                                                                                                              24 COMMENTS some text
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur

FoodfightWe just had lunch and it was horrid. Thousands of little delicious French high cuisine snacks spread on long tables guarded by the gnarliest security guys Paris had to offer. Hundreds of people stormed these tables to get their hands on the delicious, but tiny, little works of food-art. I recognized a small fish in one of them but most of the ‘pieces’ were tasty but undefinable bits of food.

Most people seemed to have missed breakfast (us included) and were desperate for something, anything, to eat. Unfortunately the guards had strict orders not to release any food to anyone, no matter what and by all means necessary. Armed with small fire arms I personally witnessed three Finish entrepreneur getting shot down while trying to steal a small loaf of bread 1.4 minutes before the buffet officially opened. Then, when they opened the gates and the guards stepped aside all hell broke loose. People were ripping out each others hair trying to get to the tables. Clothing got torn, nails were broken. There was blood everywhere. (See the photo that Ernst-Jan managed to take. I’m on the right with my shirt tucked over my head)

The long-winded last speaker, combined with no breakfast, limited Wi-Fi and the extreme cold had beaten all the humanity out of the attendees. Luckily I was able to pry some food out of the hands of a petite French women. She wouldn’t let go at first so I had to kick her a few times. I feel much better now.

Tomorrow we are bringing our own food. And baseball bats.

About the author: Serial entrepreneur and founder of several companies. Current activities include TwitterCounter.com & this Blog. Boris is also very active on Twitter: @Boris

24 comments/trackbacks to “Six people trampled in foodfight at Le Web”

  1. Dec 9, 2008: Leweb 08: Klammer kalter Galgenhumor — ☠ forza ring*2

    [...] Link des Abends beschreibt die Stimmung ganz gut (“Sechs Menschen sterben im brutalen Kampf ums Buffet auf der Leweb”) und zeigt, dass außer Durchhalteparolen von VCs und Google (The [...]

  2. Dec 10, 2008: businessmodel innovation _ design » LeWeb Day 1 - looking back and collecting links

    [...] and links. Overall I enjoyed day 1, granted there were some organisational problems (really cold, precious little food, precious little WiFi – not at the network cable equipped blogger desks at last) and not all stage [...]

  3. Dec 10, 2008: LeWeb08 - the 2nd day | *vanilleah

    [...] here in Paris. It’s still cold, the food is not enough and boring (more on that over here)and quite a lot of people already left. Ah well… there are still some interesting people [...]

  4. Dec 11, 2008: The Grand Le Web Mash-Up 2008

    [...] First of all, we pay our respect to those who didn’t survive lunch on the first day. [...]

  5. Dec 17, 2008: busuu.com | the language learning community » Blog Archive » busuu.com @ LeWeb Paris

    [...] sum up, even if there was some criticism in the blogosphere about the internet connection,  the food supply or the heating during the conference, we definitely returned from Paris, not only with great [...]

  1. By Kel on Dec 9, 2008

    Welcome to France, mr. Boris! Do you like tomatoes???

    Reply

    By Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten on December 9th, 2008:

    Why? Do you want to throw some at me??

    Reply

    By Kel on December 9th, 2008:

    Sure, if you’re into those things…

    (It’s tomatoes in the pic if I’m not mistaking? Some festival in Italy, perhaps?)

    Reply

    By Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten on December 9th, 2008:

    No no no! This was here! Just now! During Lunch, in Paris! I swear!!!

    Reply

    By Kel on December 9th, 2008:

    Okay, okay, okay! I totally believe u now…

    Have fun over there.

    Reply

    By Thomas on December 10th, 2008:

    Kel: The picture is excerpt from La Tomatina, which takes place in a city close to Valencia in Spain..

    Reply

    By Kel on December 10th, 2008:

    That’s it! And the oranges are in Italy…
    Thnx, Thomas

    Reply

  2. By DIM on Dec 9, 2008

    Some organisation overthere…that’s what we call in holland “de franse slag”

    Reply

  3. By Ronny on Dec 9, 2008

    Lmao, priceless :)
    Really funny :)
    Enjoi Paris :)

    Reply

  4. By berlinblase on Dec 9, 2008

    #leweb seeing red indeed, but do you like hot hot tamale as much as we do? Tomorrow will be a bloody day … http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/tamale/

    Reply

  5. By peter on Dec 9, 2008

    I love it. It’s so funny ’cause it’s true.

    Reply

    By Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten on December 9th, 2008:

    Yes, all true. Including the tomatoes. Really.

    Reply

  6. By Luca F. on Dec 9, 2008

    had a really good laugh… (probably because I am not there LOL)

    Reply

  7. By Rutger on Dec 10, 2008

    Red from the wine maybe :-D

    Reply

  8. By debs on Dec 10, 2008

    Too freakin funny!!!

    Reply

  9. By John Doe on Dec 12, 2008

    LOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

    LOVE THIS POST

    Reply

  10. By CarlH on Dec 12, 2008

    hilarious! ;)

    Reply

  11. By Jerry on Dec 12, 2008

    Shot down?! People actually got SHOT DOWN? Damn, I’m definitely going to Le Web 2009!

    Reply

    By Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten on December 12th, 2008:

    Oh yeah. It was amazing. Too bad Qik doesn’t work on the iPhone or I could have shown it all…

    Reply

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