Throw A Thon: Fill & Download for Free

People should "work to live", not "live to work". I'm in my 6th startup, and I can tell you from vast experience. Working ridiculous hours does nothing but cause frustration and resentment. If you give people latitude to breathe and enjoy their personal life, they will want to work harder for you since they appreciate you. If you are a slave-driver, they will give you the minimum effort to appease you.You could also consider allowing people to work from home. I did that for 3 years and it was the best thing ever. EVAR! I could throw a load of laundry in while I was waiting for a file transfer. I could put dishes away while waiting for a database import. I could eat lunch with my girlfriend. And if my foster boys were sick from school/daycare, I could pick them up and not stress about who will watch them last minute or have to take a "sick day", since I'd just put them to bed upstairs and I'm downstairs monitoring them with the webcam in their room. I gained SO much of my life back. So much of my precious TIME. No commuting in rush hour traffic. No stress about "punching a clock". I rolled out of bed and was online within a 1/2 hour instead of 2. Plus if I had insomnia or something because I was thinking about a project, I could just pop into my home office and notate it, or code more or whatever at any hour day or night.Then the work day is spread out and both people benefit. I get more of my life back since the mundane chores of life can be interleaved with work tasks. My weekends were better since I didn't have to worry about laundry or other stupid shit like that -- it was already done!And don't even get me started on how awesome it was when I realized, since I am not required to go to an office, I could work on my notebook from anywhere with Internet. ...a nice day under a tree at a park, or sitting outside on my porch, or getting together with other friends/co-workers for "hack-a-thons" where we both did our work together. Once I even went back home across the country for 2 weeks and did my work from the hotel room during the day and hung out with my aging parents and siblings at night -- precious time since I only see them once a year or so. My boss loved that because of the time zones too.Point being, give people back their life and they will give you their all. Try to contain them and they will rebel. #truestorybro

There are a lot of different formats out there, but what throws me off a bit is your desire to "control the content". Un-conference or open space approaches are, at their heart, approaches to hand over control over content to the participants. So before you decide what approach you choose, you have to be clear about what you want to achieve with this. Are you looking for a new approach so that it looks cool and attracts participants, but rather want to keep the spirit of controlling the content? Or are you really committed to trusting your participants to make this an amazing event by handing over ownership and control over the content and process?

I enjoy telling people this. My BEST concert ever was a Bruce Springsteen concert. My WORST concert ever was a Bruce Springsteen concert! Let me explain. First time we saw Bruce we had seats right to the side of the stage. It was a 3 hour hit-a-thon. I love the hits. Not ashamed to say it. Pay $75 and I want to hear them all!A few years later, Bruce and the band came through town again and we were excited to see him again. First, they didn't show up on time. They literally came on over an hour past the time they were supposed to. Our seats were low to the ground this time and we had to stand the entire time. Then , it was his “Tom Joad” stage. We thought we were at a country concert. Also, Bruce started to allow people to throw out requests and he played more obscure songs. The concert was too long, full of crappy songs and just not like the first one at all. Hated it.A close second was Eric Clapton. Went to see him. He sat in a chair all night and played blues for him and his band, not us!