While Australia won the trophy (well done Codaroos!), all the teams were bloody champions, as were the clients who were the recipients of three beautiful, fully functional sites. And the volunteers – indescribably awesome.

What was evident from the get-go, was that the teams and the volunteers really embodied the ethos of FullCodePress. They were 110% committed yet didn’t take it all too seriously; they were composed and calm, yet up for an action-packed, fun-orama!

The fact that this was meant to be a competition between the teams seemed insignificant. What each of these teams did was bigger than “who won”. If they were competing with anyone, I guess they were competing with themselves – to create something they were proud of; to work in unfamiliar surroundings in unnatural circumstances in a freaky-short timeframe; to not let tiredness get to them; to do something they as web professionals could be proud of. The important thing here was not who “came first”, but that they were giving their client a product that met their needs, and they were doing some awesome.

And by jove, they did it.

For those of us lucky enough to be at the venue throughout, we saw something that possibly wasn’t fully captured in the judges’ decision. While it was exciting to see how the sites were developing over time, and obviously the end results, it was just as exciting to pop into the rooms and see how teams of people, who, on the whole, had never worked together, were working together so naturally. This was true amongst the volunteers – Team Awesome – as well. There was true comradery. There was a strong sense of team spirit, and of mutual respect. Things didn’t need to be asked of people; they were just done, and done well.

It really was a beautiful, beautiful thing.

As well as the teams’ awe-inspiring performances and Voltron-esque* abilities, there were individuals who stood out for random acts of awesomeness. We’d like to publicly recognise them:

The he’s-so-cool-he-can-produce-ponies-out-of-thin-air award:
Keith Bolland

Most calm in the face of server adversity:
Shared between Sam Minnee and John Ford

Best find award:
Greg and Chris at wheresmyserver

Most likely to have his own talkshow:
Ludwig Wendzich

The made-the-most-effort-to-be-a-part-of-it award:
Team USA who each travelled around 30 hours to be a part of this competition, stayed for a couple of days and then flew another 30+ hours home. Now that is commitment, people.

The award for grammatical excellence:
Jo McLeod

The still-looking-hot-after-24-hours-straight award:
Shared equally by Liz Danzico, Amanda Dorrell , Matthew Buchanan and Adam Schilling

The most-promising-new-werewolf-player award:
Matthew Magain

Mr Photogenic award:


Most stylishly dressed award:
Jason Santa Maria

Bjarni Wark’s style was also noted:


The award for most awesome volunteer is shared between
Mike Forbes, Ludwig Wendzich, Amanda Dorrell, Keith Bolland, Jo McLeod, Aleah Stantiall, Darren Wood, Dan Evans and James Everett.

Best cinematography:
Dan Evans

Best photography:
James Everett

Most amusing person award:
Darren Wood

NZ’s top baker award:
John Clegg.

Arm-wrestling champion of the world award:
John Ford, with respect to Mike Harding and Bjarni Wark

Best dance moves:
Amanda Wood

Best display of team unity:
Team USA’s midnight parade


Best public displays of affection and support for a team:
Swiss Miss for this (which features a guest appearance by Webstock ‘10 superstar, Chris Shiflett!)

And the final award, the big kahuna, the man who should be president award goes to Mike Forbes. Where there is Mike, there is hope – and server stability.

Some good people have written up their own accounts of the event:

Amanda Wood, Code Blacks Project Manager: FCP in review

Jason Santa Maria, Team USA Designer: FullCodePress 2010

Xero, FullCodePress sponsor: Aussies take the trophy

Liz Danzico, Team USA User Advocate: Behind FullCodePress

Dan Mall, Team USA Marker Upper: FullCodePress

Hadyn Green, Code Black wordsmith: The Geek Tri Nations

Matt Magain, FCP Sponsor: 99 Designs Champions Win Gold for Australia

Last word:

On behalf of the organisers we’d like to give huge and sincere thanks to everyone involved in this year’s FullCodePress.
Thank you teams USA, NZ and Australia. Thank you volunteers. It was a privilege to work with you.

Thank you to our sponsors. We could not have done it without you.
Thank you to everyone who supported the teams and followed along. You rule!

Thank you all. And see you here again next year!

*Voltron is a word describing a situation where two or more beings combine efforts to become mightier than a very very mighty thing.

In 2009, the teams were crammed into a tiny space in a huge exhibition hall. This year, we have the luxury of pretty much the whole town hall (which of course we’re sharing with the ghosts, but more on that later), meaning that the teams each have their own room in which to work. . Last year there were a handful of volunteers from NZ, and a small handful of judges and volunteers from Australia. Now look at us:

Represented are all four chief Webstockers, an assortment of Webstock Secret Agents, some past contestants, clients, husbands and some Australians. Instead of constantly being told off by security guards for wandering out of our designated area, this year we’ve been encouraged to roam the whole building in search of ghosts. To be completely honest, I reckon if the ghosts are leftover from the influenza epidemic of 1918, they will totally be Team Code Blacks because it was foreigners that made us sick in the first place. Not that the volunteers aren’t objective or anything. It’s not like we’re playing “Eye of the Tiger” every time a Code Black runs up the stairs past us. Honest!

Oh, and on Twitter, on the tag #FCP10, there has been a bit of discussion about what the volunteers should be called. So far I’m loving Sue’s suggestion of “FullCodeGangPress” best. Can you top that?

You may have noticed that there was extensive online activity on the FullCodePress website and associated outlets.

In the 24 hours of the event, a series of dedicated volunteers took hundreds of photos – over 330 of which were quickly edited and pumped onto Flickr.

These volunteers also wrote and posted 122 blog posts, allowing us to give minute by minute descriptions of the unfolding events.

There were 175 official twitter posts (not counting the mass of twitter posts that were done by people from their own twitter accounts). Twitter turned out to be the hook that drew many people in to the event. The speed and frequency of posts as well as the immediacy and quickness of the comments allowed those away from the event to get a feeling for what was going on – in real time.

The volunteers also videoed, edited, top and tailed (adding intros and sponsor logos) and then uploaded 17 amazing videos to YouTube – while the event unfolded – with more to come in the next week or so.

So, a huge thank you to all volunteers on behalf of the two groups, WIPA and Webstock!