Photo credit: Walter Elly (Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burundy)

I love Halloween. And it’s not because of the candy. It’s never been about the candy for me. In fact, as a kid, I used to give away all my candy. Well, at least after I went through my loot and grabbed everything I liked such as Kit Kats, Reeces Peanut Butter Cups, Hershey Bars and Nestle Crunches – the rest could go away ( I was a generous kid). Halloween for me is about being someone else for one (or a few nights) around Halloween. I love getting dressed up which is probably why I ended up being a theater major in college. I also dig scary movies.

Coming from a family that has run its own party store (Ballards) for the past 30 years where Halloween was and is still the biggest time of the year for business, I have been fortunate to have a huge selection of costumes to choose from. And because of this, Halloween has been a bigger holiday for me than even Christmas (gasp!).

This is why I am especially excited about bringing together my passion for Halloween and also networking to bring you the NHTweetUp Halloween #SpookUp! with The Portsmouth Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday, October 28 at The Red Hook Ale Brewery in Portsmouth. Sponsored by MicroArts and Ballards.

Along with a great networking opportunity, we are going to offer a tour of Red Hook Brewery, a costume contest, Belching Monkey will be doing a live show from the event which will be streaming on the Web!

I am also very excited that The Port Thriller Zombies will be performing Michael Jackson’s Thriller Dance for everyone. Feel free to join in if you want (I know I will be doing it). If you want to learn the dance before the event, check out this video tutorial:

We will also be raffling off some great prizes including:

• A Red Hook Ale Gift Certificate
• Some freshly ground coffee from Port City Coffee Roasters
• Your choice of a beautiful print from Stephanie Wales Photography’s NH Fine Art Gallery
• And More!

As I told my friend Walter Elly from MicroArts (long time NHTweetUp sponsor), The SpookUp is kind of a big deal for me which is why he created the picture above of Will Ferrell as Ron Burgundy in Anchorman.

For more information about the event and to sign up, go to the official SpookUp Eventbrite page at: http://bit.ly/SpookUp

I hope to see you there! You don’t want to miss it!

I have attended and been involved in planning many TweetUps over the past year with my first being an impromptu one I “organized” with @girlgamy and @Geechee_girl at Pocos Bow Street Cantina in Portsmouth, NH. I use the word organize loosely because all we really did was decide we wanted to hang out and meet some people we tweeted with then chose a location and Bam! People actually showed up.

Jeff Cutler & Christine Major MargUp! (photo credit: Steve Garfield http://www.stevegarfield.com & http://www.twitter.com/stevegarfield

Since then, I have planned many other TweetUps including, the #MargUp at Margarita’s in Portsmouth, the #NHTweetUp at The Portsmouth Gas Light Co. (which ended up in the upstairs lounge because it rained) and some movie-themed events such as the #BondUp for the James Bond movie Quantum of Silence and the #BostonBeamUp for the new Star Trek movie. In all cases, we were able to draw a nice group  - both Twitter users and non-Twitter users, who also shared the same passion for networking and just hanging out with friends (along with movies and popcorn).

The latest NHTweetUp - tagged The #DeckUp – took place on 8/12/09 at The Portsmouth Gas Light Co. again, this time on their outdoor deck since the weather actually cooperated with us. Local videographer/photographer Jay Duchin from Duchin Productions attended and brought along his video equipment to capture some on-site interviews and footage of the event. He asked a few attendees, including myself, several questions about TweetUps, specifically what makes for a good event and the benefits of attending a TweetUp. Below is the final version of his video. If you are curious about what a TweetUp is or the value of attending them, you will want to check this out. Better yet, find out when the next TweetUp is taking place in your area and just go!

So what do you think? What makes for a good TweetUp/networking event? Let me know your thoughts with a comment below. Would love to hear from you as I have been having many discussions around this topic lately with varying degrees of responses. A future blog post perhaps? You bet!

Photo credit: MargUp Jeff Cuter & Christine Major photo taken by Steve Garfield