Most conferences tend to be boring, although not intentionally so. But there is one event that is deliberately dedicated to all things dull and tedious. The Boring Conference is hosted every year at London. Believe it or not, it's a sell-out event where attendees are treated to talks on all sorts of boring things like paper bags, toilet roll quality control, lamp posts, and bricks.

    It started in 2010, when the man in charge of organizing an event called the Interesting Conference canceled the whole thing, saying that he was too busy. James Ward, an author and marketer, replied to the announcement, saying that he liked boring things and that they should be celebrated too.

    His social media post got a lot of people interested in a possible event about boring things and he started getting questions about where to buy tickets for it. That year, Ward organized the world's first Boring Conference.

    This year's Boring Conference, held at London's Conway Hall on May 7, was the sixth consecutive event in the last six years and all 425 tickets were sold out in just a few days. Ward always opens up the event himself, because he likes to "set the bar low." Last year, he spoke about postcard photos of the old Post Office Tower.

    According to the event's website, the Boring Conference is a "one-day celebration of the mundane, the ordinary, the obvious and the overlooked; subjects often considered trivial and pointless, but when examined more closely reveal themselves to be deeply fascinating."

    Past topics of discussion have included sneezing, IBM tills, toast, vending machine sounds, barcodes, the Shipping Forecast and other such topics of no interest to anyone. This year's event had 20 speakers cover similar snoozeworthy subjects – such as the domestic inkjet printers of 1999, German film titles, cooking elaborate meals with hotel room equipment, and the similarities between the world's national anthems – in 10-minute slots.   

    Words to Learn 相关词汇

    平凡的

    píngfán de

    mundane

    common, ordinary, banal, unimaginative 

    收银台

    shōuyíntái

    till

    the place where you pay for goods in a large store

    无聊大会受热捧

    大多数会议往往都很无聊，尽管这并不是组织者的本意。但是有人故意组织一场会议，说的都是无趣又乏味的事物。那就是每年在伦敦举办的“无聊大会”。信不信由你，这个活动非常卖座，与会者能听到的就是关于各种各样无聊题目的讲话，比如纸袋、卷筒卫生纸的质量控制、灯柱，和砖块。

    无聊大会起步于2010年，当时负责组织一个叫做“趣味大会”的人说他太忙了，就取消了那次活动。詹姆斯?沃德是个作家兼营销人员，他在社交媒体上发帖回应这一声明说，他喜欢无聊的事，无聊的事也应该庆祝。他的帖子引发了许多人对这个活动的兴趣，人们开始问他哪里能买到门票。那一年，沃德组织了世界上第一场“无聊大会”。

    今年的无聊大会于5月7日在伦敦康威会堂举办，这是过去六年来连续举办的第六次活动，一共425张票，短短几天就卖光了。沃德总是第一个讲话，因为他想把“期望值降低”。去年他讲的是明信片上老邮政大楼的照片。

    活动网站介绍：“无聊大会为期一天，是一场庆祝平凡普通、显而易见却又容易被忽略的事物的活动；那些经常被视作微不足道、毫无意义的事物，一旦更仔细地审视它们，就会发现其中深藏的魅力。”

    无聊大会过去讨论的话题包括打喷嚏、IBM收款机、烤面包、自动售货机的声音、条形码、海上天气预报，还有其它类似的没人感兴趣的话题。今年的大会有20位演讲者，话题也同样让人听了打瞌睡——比如说1999年的家用喷墨式打印机、德国电影的名字、怎样用旅馆房间里的设备做出精致菜肴、还有世界各国国歌的相似性，每人的发言时间为10分钟。