Thanks whatsup I totally agree in your summary, it leaves out many of the hatespeech thrown at me :P - getting that on some typed comment is one thing, but having that shouted in your face another :P.

I elaborate a bit myself about those "strong feelings" you mention in a paragraph elsewhere in my longer response on this post from meno.

Afaik Steemit inc sponsors multiple events and I think that is what most of the blockchains do. They sponsor not only monetarily but also by having people at those events present. Only this week already I saw several posts from Steemit employees being or going to events (both in the US actually :P).

So yes I did reach out to Steemit inc, you can see this in my original announcement for SF1 where I paste my reachout email. (linking to busy, because the formatting due to < code > < / code > tags is a bit weird on Steemit.com for this one: https://busy.org/@roelandp/save-the-date-steemfest-1-11-12-13-november-2016-amsterdam-nl

Btw. just to be factual: Winter starts in Poland on 21st of December. So with the start of SteemFest 3 - on 7 November we are exactly 45 days (or at 50%) of autumn in the Northern Hemisphere!