FTC Disclosure: Open Sauce, Inc. did not explicitly ask me to write this blog post, did not pay me for this review, and did not have an opportunity to review or request changes to this piece prior to its publication. However, I did receive material incentive to attend Open Sauce 2025 by way of free admission, the comparable public retail value of which amounts to a VIP ticket worth US$1,499.00. All other expenses were self-funded.

 
After I had a great time last year at Open Sauce 2024, my friend Billie-Rae, an executive of and the head of marketing at the company running Open Sauce, invited me to attend again this year. Open Sauce 2024 was my all-time favorite convention, so I was happy to accept the invitation and head back to the San Francisco Bay Area last weekend, this year to the San Mateo County Event Center.

As a reminder, the reason why I liked Open Sauce so much last year is because it felt more like a large science fair than it did a regular convention. I’ve been to many conventions, both as part of my work at Tempo and for personal leisure, but many of them feel very commercialized. Open Sauce stood out in that it was a collection of people who were genuinely interested in science and wanted to show off and talk about their experiments and creations. Other conventions’ exhibition halls feel like a gigantic collection of advertisements, but Open Sauce’s exhibition halls are filled with passionate scientists and technology enthusiasts.

The advertisers and sponsors that do still go to Open Sauce are integrated very well and showcase their product in a way where it doesn’t feel like they’re trying to get you to buy their product, but rather, they’re demonstrating what their product can do and are leaving it up to you to decide. Sponsors whose primary objective is brand exposure are still integrated naturally; for example, PCBWay was back again this year with another batch of branded metallic circuit board credential badges that people could bring to their booth and personally solder components onto to make it light up.

When I received my itinerary this year, I noticed that there were fewer special experiences for creators and guests compared to last year. These special activities and parties were some of my favorite things from last year, so it wasn’t great news when I found out that there was less going on in 2025. On top of that, the one off-site activity they had was just a repeat of last year—a tour of Adam Savage’s workshop, “The Cave.” With that being said, I think we were just extra spoiled last year; there were still plenty of opportunities for people to congregate and network with each other this year, which I think is the priority for most of the creators and special guests when they attend events like this.

In a similar vein, there were a lot more content creators, members of the press, and special guests this year. Last year, there was a fairly limited scope of people in attendance, with a vast majority of the creators and guests being science and technology YouTubers. I liked this because these YouTubers felt, for a lack of a better word, normal. They were all pleasant and approachable people, and none of them had any of the undesirable characteristics that you usually find in Twitch live streaming or influencer culture of being self-centered, arrogant, and out of touch with reality. This year, I think there were more people who extended outside the “normal scientist” bubble and gave off a mild form of the “sheltered influencer” energy. With that being said, I think there was still a solid filter with regards to who was invited, and the spotlighted creators were nowhere near as bad as what you’d find in live streaming or video gaming conventions.

(Random side note: While I was in the creator lounge, I managed to meet Alan Melikdjanian, owner of the Captain Disillusion YouTube channel. I have watched his videos for a long time and not only admire his video editing skills but also his philosophy of exposing and combating misinformation through educating the public. We had a nice chat while waiting in line to get our share of catered lunch. I don’t really get starstruck when meeting people, but I think Captain Disillusion is as close as you can get to getting me starstruck for now, so I’m glad I was able to run into him at Open Sauce.)

No matter what the invited guest experience was like, the most important part of Open Sauce was still the exhibition hall. I concluded that, no matter how many special activities there were or who the special guests were, as long as the exhibition halls were the same as last year, it would still be a great convention. Fortunately, Open Sauce did indeed maintain its core identity, and the passionate energy of the exhibit halls remained the same as last year. I noticed that the convention this year was quite a bit larger than last year, so I was actually fairly impressed that they managed to scale it up to this degree, yet still not lose its charming identity in the exhibition halls.

My credentials gave me access to the exhibition halls across three total days, and I spent a good chunk of time on all three days exploring the halls. I walked multiple rounds through all three halls, made sure to try all the demonstrations I could, and even kept track of which ones I missed due to long lines so that I could go back and see it on a subsequent day. Just like last year, everyone was very welcoming and inviting, and I had a great time hearing about and trying out all the exhibits.

 
I’ll start with my favorite exhibit from this year, four-dimensional Counter-Strike. This little booth was set up with two computers from which you could play Counter-Strike, except some of the weapons were hooked up to real-life stimulants surrounding the gaming area.

Detonating a flashbang within range of your opponent would cause blindingly bright lights to turn on next to their computer station. Getting hit with an explosive grenade would cause the entire table to vibrate and make a rattling noise. Walking into the smoke of a smoke bomb would prompt a leaf blower to blow air in your face while a mist sprayed on you from behind.

My second favorite exhibit was a backpack with a motor inside that would gauge your lean and counter-rotate to balance you. The problem is that the motor is pretty heavy and it takes a split second for it to actually counter-rotate properly, so it perpetually feels like the backpack is both trying to kill you and save your life at the same time, which was a very amusing experience.

Here I am getting convinced into finding a Porygon in a Wii game… and ultimately failing.

Hello egg.

There was a crate with a sign that said “Open the crate… if you dare.” I dared.

Next to the daring crate was a computer with Super Crate Box on it. I don’t really play games anymore, but when I did, I was a keyboard-and-mouse gamer and am notoriously bad at using gaming controllers. Needless to say, I performed catastrophically poorly.

Hello hat.

I’m also notoriously bad at using joysticks because the movement feels vague to me and I can’t ever really tell how far in a direction I have to move the joystick in order for the command to register. … Again, needless to say, I performed monumentally poorly.

What I did better at was Crossy Road, but with real-life physical controls. Every time I jumped, a webcam would detect my movement and advance the bird one lane. I managed to get to the river… before tragically diving straight in and drowning.

This is a game of shuffleboard where the weights have sensors in them so they can detect where it ended up and automatically keep score for you. Unfortunately, they weren’t working that day, so I guess you could consider them to be extremely fragile hockey pucks instead.

This was a game where you had to keep a baby alive. I contributed to the effort by rocking the baby back and forth to relieve it of its tiredness, but then some random guy decided to grief and reached over to light a paper towel roll on fire (in-game), so I gave up and moved onto the next exhibit.

I think the objective of this game was to hack into some girl’s computer and read all her personal information. I couldn’t tell what else I needed to do beyond that, though.

This was a game about sushi where the controller was a samurai sword. You quickly unsheathe and sheathe the sword to slice the fish on screen and turn them into sashimi, and you press a button on the sword to block the aggressive fish from reaching you. This was a rhythm game, but the timing of the music was a bit off, so I didn’t do too well, but I got a hang of the delay later on and compensated, which made things better.

This game helped me discover that apparently I’m not very good at roguelikes either. At this point, it’s a mystery as to how I managed to help run a decently successful esports company several years ago.

Here is another photograph of me struggling with yet again another game.

Open Sauce this year had an outdoor section. There was a train out there blowing bubbles, so I decided to take a picture next to it. I didn’t realize how deceptively large the throughput of the bubbles were, and I managed to get soap residue all over my glasses from when the bubbles popped after hitting my face.

This chair is designed to force you to have great, balanced posture when seated; failure to do so will result in the stool tilting and trying to throw you off the edge. As you can see, I did a stellar job and was not at risk of drilling my face into the concrete block next to me at any point throughout the experience whatsoever.

This exhibit tested to see how good you were at balancing; you’d place one foot in the center and then use the other foot to move the gray sliders to match the distances as outlined on the screen beside the device.

Even though you might not be able to tell, I’m in this next photo as well; it apparently uses a camera to see what’s in front of it, but warps the image using circuitry in a pattern determined by which button you press on the controller.

My third favorite exhibit of Open Sauce this year was a robot that tore apart a microwave. As you can see, it was very popular when the demonstration was happening, so I wasn’t really able to get a good photograph of the destruction.

This was an activity where you press buttons to control a robot and attempt to knock out your opponent. I played against my cameraman and defeated him ruthlessly.

This was a modified version of Street Fighter where taking damage causes you to receive an electric shock through the joystick. I figured out a way to cheese it by only controlling the joystick with my fingernails instead of with the fleshy part of my fingers, but switched back to holding the joystick normally for the spirit of fair competition. I, again, played against my cameraman… but this time, I was the one who got defeated ruthlessly.

Here are some more photographs of random things I found interesting around the exhibition halls and stages.

And finally, here is a picture of me with one of my friends in the creator interview area. She agreed to be on my blog, but didn’t want her identity disclosed, so this is the solution I came up with.

Overall, Open Sauce remains my all-time favorite convention, with Open Sauce 2025 joining Open Sauce 2024 as my top two.

There are some elements that I liked better in 2024, and there are other elements that I liked better in 2025. However, the one thing I was overwhelmingly impressed at with 2025 is how much it had grown, yet still maintained its identity as a science fair instead of falling into the expected pipeline of becoming more like a conference. I think a lot of variables had to be controlled and accounted for to pull that off, which I applaud the Open Sauce team for.

I took a lot of pictures with con-goers, some of whom know me from my recent collaborations and guest appearances with some of my friends, while others dated back to my esports years with Tempo Storm; if you’re posting photos of us together on social media, feel free to tag me so I can browse through them.

FTC Disclosure: Open Sauce, Inc. did not ask me to write this blog post, did not pay me cash for this review, and did not have an opportunity to review or request changes to this piece prior to its publication. However, I did receive material financial incentive to attend Open Sauce 2024 by way of free VIP admission and free lodging. The public retail value of such incentives amounts to a VIP ticket worth US$1,499.00 and a hotel stay worth approximately US$600.00. All other expenses beyond the aforementioned items were self-funded.

 
I’m not really the biggest fan of the San Francisco Bay Area in California (which should be unsurprising to you if you’ve read my blog post about how I got ~US$3,000.00 of stuff burglarized from me the last time I was here), but my friend Billie-Rae invited me to attend Open Sauce, a science and tech­nol­o­gy convention taking place at the Cow Palace in Daly City. Billie-Rae is a full-time employee at the company that runs the convention, so I de­cid­ed that was enough of a reason to support her work and check it out last week between June 14-16.

I’ve been to a lot of events and conventions of all different kinds over the past decade. I’ve attended as various roles, including an organizer, staff mem­ber, host, tournament competitor, exhibitor, media, broadcast talent, and plain old con-goer. Many conventions and brands have compensated me (or have tried to compensate me) in the past with high-end luxury accommodations worth several thousands of dollars, as well as hefty cash payments.

With all that being said, I can confidently say that Open Sauce 2024 was my favorite convention of all time.

Yes, I understand that people probably think my opinion doesn’t mean much because I got a special invite from my friend who works there. However, long-time readers know that I take my reputation very seriously and would never write an intentionally inflated or exaggerated review just to help out a friend. I have been very honest and transparent about disclosing everything up to this point, and I feel that I am being objective and unbiased with every­thing else in this blog post as well.

 
Open Sauce had a very different feel to it than any other convention I’ve ever been to, which made me enjoy it a lot more; upon some thought, I’ve con­clud­ed that that can be attributed to a handful of factors:

• It does not feel commercialized.

  Revenue from ticket sales are pretty much never enough to run a large-scale convention. A convention center will have limited space for attendees, and consequently, there will be a limited number of tickets available for sale. If the ticket price is scaled to cover all expenses, it would be pro­hib­i­tive­ly high and cause fewer people to attend, thus reducing revenue. There is a sweet spot of balancing ticket price with attendance, and that sweet spot is usually nowhere close enough to cover expenses associated with venue rental, attractions, experiences, staffing, utilities, equip­ment, dec­o­ra­tions, marketing, etc.

  For this reason, conventions will sell space in their exhibition hall to sponsors, and these sponsors will promote their brand and products at their booth. Every other convention I’ve been to has had its exhibition hall feel like a gigantic three-dimensional billboard of endless advertisements with logos plastered everywhere. Companies furnish their booths with plush carpeting and nice fake walls to attract con-goers and incentivize them to get ex­po­sure to their brand.

  Open Sauce did not feel like this whatsoever. There were four exhibition halls, and all of them looked like massive empty warehouses with no love or care given to their presentation… which fit the convention perfectly, because it made it feel more genuine and authentic. All the focus of Open Sauce was on the science and technology of the cre­a­tions that people brought to the convention. Each booth was run by passionate scientists and inventors, not salespeople. There was nothing fancy in any of the booths—it was just the creator and the creation, and nothing else there to distract you from taking in their work.

  This doesn’t mean there were no sponsors at Open Sauce. However, the sponsors they did have were extremely well-integrated. For example, PCBWay sponsored the admission credentials for the convention, so everyone’s badge was a thin metallic circuit board (as opposed to just a flimsy piece of laminated paper like every other convention does). At their booth, you could finish soldering the connection with a battery and LED and make it light up. Formlabs also appeared to be a sponsor, and they brought high-end 3D printers that people could experiment with and try out. Both of these were directly relevant to the theme of the con­ven­tion and were actual interesting interactive things, as opposed to just ads.

  I diligently went up and down every aisle in all the exhibition halls, and I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it. This is the one and only con­ven­tion where I regularly stopped at many booths to try out their activity because of how inherently fun all the creations looked. I heard from a mu­tu­al friend that Michael Reeves (who was also in attendance) calls it a “science fair” instead of a convention, and I think that is a pretty accurate de­scrip­tion.

• The special guests were pleasant people.

  Due to the nature of my work at Tempo during our prior esports and influencer marketing era, I’m used to interacting with stereotypical content cre­a­tors and broadcasters, especially those related and adjacent to Twitch live streaming. I’m fairly outspoken about my dislike of most of these peo­ple due to how disconnected they are with reality—many of them have a false and egregiously inflated sense of ego and self-importance com­pared to the rest of the world, which manifests in them coming off as extremely vain, arrogant, ignorant, lazy, and irresponsible.

  Open Sauce also had content creators in attendance, but the attitudes of these content cre­a­tors were very different. They all acted like normal people, and they all treated me like a normal person. I have had my fair share of encounters with meeting Twitch streamers during which they acted genuinely insulted that I didn’t already know who they were, but all the content creators at Open Sauce introduced themselves to me with a clear intent to meet new people and make new friends. I imagine there was a fairly thorough vetting process to decide who was and was not invited as a special guest, and this vetting process was well done, because I felt comfortable around everyone who was there.

• I personally liked how the panels were scheduled.

  Most conventions have many panels scheduled and happening at once, and attendees have to pick which ones they want to go to, oftentimes hav­ing to miss out on some panels they want to watch in lieu of others. Open Sauce seemed to have a fairly limited number of panels, and there were only two places where panels were taking place—the main stage and secondary stage.

  This had two interesting effects. First, the panels that it did have were higher-impact panels that appealed to a broader audience, as opposed to having a lot of more specialized or niche topics. Second, because there were limited options of panels to watch, the audience was naturally bigger for each of the panels. Because the main stage was in a sporting arena and the massive amount of arena seating was used for the panel audience, it actually felt nice enjoying panels together with a large group of people.

  In a similar vein, I think Open Sauce realized that, although some people attend panels to listen to the topic, many of them go just to watch their fa­vor­ite content creators and broadcast personalities speak. I heard that most panelists held small meet-and-greets after speaking, so what the pan­els functionally ended up being was an opportunity for fans to know when and where to find their favorite creator, so they can meet them af­ter­wards.

  I heard that some people didn’t like this format, but I personally think this was a very efficient and practical way to run the schedule.

• The activities for special guests were fun and relevant.

  When I am invited as a special guest or otherwise receive VIP treatment during conventions, the “exclusive access” usually just ends up being a lounge and a networking party. Although Open Sauce also did that, they further scheduled two fun activities that really stood out to me.

  The first was a visit to “The Cave,” Adam Savage’s workshop. The second was a visit to CrunchLabs, Mark Rober’s facility. Considering that both Adam and Mark are well-known personalities in the science field, being able to see their offices was very meaningful and interesting. I didn’t watch MythBusters when it was on TV, but I do watch all of Mark Rober’s YouTube videos, so I loved being able to see in-person the things he built for his channel.

  In a not identical but still similar vein, I enjoyed the fact that there was a hotel fully booked out exclusively for special guests. At first, the staff por­trayed this as being done for “security” reasons, which made me chuckle—I’m from Las Vegas where even A-list celebrities walk the casino and ho­tel floors alongside everyone else, so the fact that YouTubers would need that level of security was funny to me. However, I realized that having this kind of hotel was a good idea for a different reason.

  What was nice about the booked-out hotel was that everyone knew everyone else there was a science-related or science-adjacent person. In a reg­u­lar hotel, if you saw a stranger, you wouldn’t know if they were there for the same convention as you, or for something else entirely unrelated. How­ever, for Open Sauce, you knew that, if someone was inside that hotel, they were definitely there for Open Sauce. This encouraged people to be much more social and approach and initiate conversation with strangers because they are going into the interaction knowing that they share some degree of interests.

The second and fourth points obviously will not be relevant if you are just a general admission attendee, but for the sake of thoroughly sharing an an­ec­dote of my own experience, I decided to still include them.

 
So, if it wasn’t blatantly clear by now… if you are interested in science and technology and want a fun and high-value convention to attend, I highly rec­om­mend Open Sauce based on my experience that I had this year. The general admission ticket for 2024 was US$200.00, which I think is a very rea­son­a­ble price for a two-day convention that has so much to do that you’ll probably fill both days from open to close with interactive experiences. Their web­site currently shows early bird purchases for 2025 coming soon at US$99.69, which I find to be insanely cheap for what you get.

Below are some photos I took (and some that others took of me) during the convention: