Portland Startup Weekend: It’s still a “Go!”… are you?

Roughly six months ago, the Portland startup community put its collective effort into casting votes for “Portland Startup Weekend,” a local version of the successful Startup Weekend events designed to test our collective entrepreneurial mettle by challenging participants to form a company in a 54-hour period.

Thanks to that collective voting effort, Portland was among the first cities selected for the 2008 series of Startup Weekends. And those who were interested in the event—myself included—were, for lack of a better word, “psyched.”

In the following months, the Startup Weekend team expanded to support its rapidly growing popularity. Founder Andrew Hyde stepped aside to hand off the planning for Startup Weekend—including Portland Startup Weekend—to the someone who could focus on the events full-time.

Everything seemed to be moving in the right direction.

But then, things got quiet. Too quiet.

And now, Hyde has informed us that Portland Startup Weekend—scheduled for May 23-25—has fallen victim to some organizational issues:

Sorry for the lack of communication, the person that was in charge of putting together this weekend quit last weekend without notice, and the lack of communication was worse than I realized. If you have any questions, please email me at andrew@startupweekend.com and I will get right back to you. I am very sorry for the inconvenience this has caused everyone.

It’s unfortunate that any Startup Weekend encountered these difficulties, let alone our Startup Weekend.

But, Andrew and his team are working overtime to recover the fumble.

Jeremy Tanner, who has now taken the lead on Portland Startup Weekend planning, had this to say:

This is disappointing to the planning process, but not breaking the spirit of the event (This being Startup Weekend and all). This is an incredibly talented group, and I can’t wait to see what the group can accomplish in just 54 hours….

The real goal of Startup Weekend is community, and I can’t wait for SWPDX to show what it has. Plan on meeting some brilliant folks, working with those you have only known through twitter, and showing what you can do. Don’t expect to create the next Google, unless you are on my team, which, then it would be totally cool.

What now?

But now, comes the real question: How will this stumble affect attendance?

If you were planning to go, are you still going? Have you opted out? Never thought about participating?

I’ve heard some rumblings about attendance on Twitter—both positive and negative—but that’s far from conclusive. So I thought I would take the opportunity to launch a quick poll. Just to gauge the interest—and possible attendance—this weekend.

[polldaddy|626477]

Please take a second to respond, either via the poll or the comments.

I’d really appreciate hearing from you on this topic.