Beyond Creative: Liselore Stuut

There's only five, YES FIVE glorious weeks until this years sensational Meet The Blogger 2012 event commences and I for one am extremely excited! If you don't know what MTB is then honey, where have you been?! For a brief catch-up you can take a peek at my last MTB write up but for now, stay with me darling! This event is a great opportunity for interior & lifestyle bloggers around the world to come together, meet & mingle and learn an enormous amount about enhancing, improving, expanding and developing their blogs further. Sadly I missed last years debut, which featured key note speaker - Holly Becker. Not wanting to miss out this year, fellow bloggers Kelly, Sam and I have our tickets pre-booked and are poised and ready to roll. Not only that but I have a huge announcement to make...I'm so proud to announce that I will be the OFFICIAL LIVE BLOGGER for the event this year. Eeeek! Thank you so much Liselore for picking me to report LIVE! 

This year the event promises to be even bigger, better and jammed packed than the last. With all 100+ tickets selling out in just the first week alone and seeing all the passion behind it I interviewed one of the founders and organiser Liselore Stuut to find out the story behind MTB...

HOP How did the idea of Meet The Blogger evolve/come about

MTB I really love blogging and the design/lifestyle blogosphere. When I noticed that in the US, events started popping up where these bloggers could meet, I realized we did not have something similar yet in Europe. In addition I felt the urge to meet some of the lovely bloggers in person.

HOP How did you go about making your idea for MTB a reality

MTB Well I started to share the idea on my own blog and Twitter and within a few hours I received a lot of comments.Together with Janneke Romijn, we started to plan the event and all of a sudden we had 100 bloggers in one room in Amsterdam!!

HOP How will MTB 2012 differ from last years event

MTB Meet the Blogger 2012 is even more exiting than the first one. We don't want to make the event bigger in quantity but we really felt that we wanted to upscale the event so we are happy that we have lovely new sponsors on board: vtwonen, Quooker, Loods5, Brabantia and the Conservatorium Hotel. In addition we have some lovely key note speakers and some new workshops. Also have you already heard about the Meet the Blogger Award Ceremony? That's new too!

HOP I did. Please tell us a bit more about the MTB Award Ceremony

MTB The ceremony is new for this year. We think that there are so many lovely bloggers around and they deserve to be recognized by the public. That's why vtwonen decided to have a vtwonen meet the blogger award.

HOP How did you go about choosing the programme & venue for MTB this year

MTB Together with our platinum sponsor, vtwonen, we had several brainstorm discussions around the program and the venue. We made a list of possible topics, speakers, and workshops. The thing is, as you go along contacting people and comparing venues, some options just fall of the list whilst others pop up.

HOP Who is your favourite designer and why

MTB I don't really have a special designer in mind. On my blog, Urban Style Vibes* however, you can see that I love modern, urban and global lifestyle design.

HOP What 3 things could you not live without

MTB My passport, my iPhone and the sun!
HOP Oh I completely agree with you there!

All images credited: Holly Becker Flickr

HOP What are your top tips for anyone thinking of or planning to go to MTB this year

MTB Bring along (blog) business cards! You will definitely meet new people and it’s great to return home with all these new friends’s cards in your pocket!

If you managed to bag a ticket, congrats! I can't wait to see you there and meet you all. I've included a list of all of us who's attending. If you haven't got one of those golden tickets, don't fret, I'll be live blogging, tweeting and keeping you all updated live via twitter and Instagram (@hopinteriors) and of course there'll be a full blog write up....