And yet last Friday we held our biggest, most fun, and best event ever. Over 150 Floridians turned out (many driving from far-off locations such as Tampa and Gainesville) to partake in WipEout HD, LittleBigPlanet beta, Buzz! Quiz TV and BBQ. It was great to get to talk with so many of you, many of whom expressed thanks for coming all the way out there.

My favorite story of the night came from the gentleman (pictured below), who bet his friend $5 that he wouldn’t win anything, “because he never does.” This, of course, is right before he won a copy of Buzz PS3.

Actually, everyone was a winner, as we surprised attendees with LittleBigPlanet beta codes, prompting the biggest cheers of the night.

Thanks again to everyone who attended, and especially to Matt and Sean who took so many great pics with their fancy SLR cameras. Oh, and to the Orlando Sentinel, PS3 Fanboy, and other bloggers who wrote about the event.

Uber-extra-special thanks to the fine folks at Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy/UCF, for proving such gracious hosts in an awesome venue. Thanks Todd, Rich, and JR.

Just so you know, we’ll be back in Central Florida (in a somewhat different capacity) in just a couple of weeks during the PlayStation Pro.

Oh, and we’ve got a few extra LBP codes for those who couldn’t make it. The first 50 people to email us at playstationblogorlando@gmail.com will receive an LBP beta key by the end of the day (Pacific time!).

UPDATE: All winners have been identified, and will be receiving their codes shortly (some of you have them already). So, um, that’s good on the emails! Thanks!

Don’t let me hear that the East Coast gets no love from us.

As mentioned earlier, I’ll be attending a blogging conference in sunny Orlando next week, and I’d like to meet you well-tanned PlayStation fans. Here are the details – we’ll be meeting up next Friday (September 26th) from 7-9 pm near downtown (*not* Downtown Disney!) at UCF’s FIEA – the awesome videogame grad school program that they’ve got going on down there.

We’ll be playing games competitively (yes, for prizes) and enjoying real southern BBQ, with sweet tea by the gallon. Mmmmmm, sweet tea…

FIEA people will also be around to answer questions – so if you’ve never seen a mo-cap studio before, this could be your big chance.

Afterwards, we’ll be conveniently located near the downtown bar ‘n’ club area, so I’m sure there’ll be some spillover as well. I’m a big fan of I-Bar, personally.

All you need to do is, um, show up. Yes, of course it’s free. RSVP at playstationblogorlando@gmail.com or on our Facebook event page, so we know how much pork to pull.

OK, the above, summarized into blurb form:

Orlando PlayStation.Blog readers’ meet-up
Friday, September 26, 7-9 pm local time
Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy
500 W Livingston St
Orlando, FL 32801
USA, Earth

Click here for more specific directions, or check out the Google Map-pery below.

Don’t forget to RSVP – see you there!