For the third straight year, an eclectic, quirky, unpredictable international lineup of speakers took turns offering pep talks on the human condition, ominous reality checks and glimpses of the future in 20-minute stanzas. For those who ponied up $425 a ticket, the nine-hour experience included three meals and, for the third straight year, according to host Anand Pallegar, the event sold out all 540 seats.

The People, Ideas, Nature and Creativity conference is scheduled for Dec. 8, with 16 international speakers of “singular accomplishment in widely varied fields” at the Sarasota Opera House.

No successful startup story begins these days without the Fiat first being moved into the driveway. If you’re going to be the next Apple or Google, you must unleash this innovative Zeitgeist on an oil-stained concrete floor.

Alternately exhilarating, challenging and provocative, the marathon People, Ideas, Nature, Creativity (PINC) program, sponsored by Ringling College of Art and Design, compressed the skills and perspectives of 16 presentations into 20-minute blocks of entertainment.

Sponsored by Ringling College of Art and Design, the People, Ideas, Nature and Creativity (PINC) conference is already running out of room for its 450-seat capacity audience.

A crowd of 230 people welcomed speaker after speaker to the Florida Studio Theater in downtown Sarasota on Thursday.

PINC Sarasota, which will be held early next month at Florida Studio Theatre, is being touted as a celebration of “People, Ideas, Nature and Creativity” that will bring international storytellers to Sarasota for the first time.

When people leave Florida Studio Theater on Nov. 6, Anand Pallegar wants them to feel energized and to be brimming with new ideas. That is the whole premise behind the inaugural PINC.Sarasota event, which in less than two weeks will take over the theater in downtown Sarasota for a whole day.

An international conference that fosters creativity and innovation will be making its U.S. debut in Sarasota this year.

PINC, which stands for “People, Ideas, Nature and Creativity,” will bring 16 international storytellers from a wide variety of backgrounds to the Florida Studio Theatre in Sarasota on Nov. 6.

AtLarge Inc. — the local website, applications, social media and online advertising campaign creator — has opened an office in Manchester, England.

Anand Pallegar, chief executive officer of Sarasota’s atLarge Inc., is the new chairman of the group, founded in 2000 to get its members to work together to make the region a place where technology and innovation thrive.