Bar none: 'BarCamp' tech conference returns to Manchester.

Last winter more than 70 Web professionals, businesspeople and technology innovators met at the Amoskeag Business Incubator for the first BarCamp Manchester. This summer, a second BarCamp event is being held and it's shaping up to be even bigger than the first.

A BarCamp technology conference generally has an underlying theme, but the individual topics and sessions are organized shortly before, or even at, the event, enabling BarCamp to be more targeted to the needs of the state's tech community.

Bar Camp is an expression of community. It's passionate people coming together to engage, to plan, to scheme about changing the world doing work that they love," Chris Messina, BarCamp cofounder. "We've basically taken the hallway conversations that happen at most old-school conferences and placed them squarely in the center of the event. And what you get, well, you'd have come to BarCamp to understand just what makes it different."

This year's BarCamp will focus on Web technology innovations, Messina said.

Anyone who has something to present or has the desire to learn is welcome and invited to join, said Messina.

The conference will be held from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. July 28 at the Amoskeag Business Incubator in the Manchester Millyard. For more information, visit barcampmanchester.org.