Well you’re tough on tech,” one journalist said to me in the media village.

Before me sat my Thinkpad Edge E135, its right hinge disconnected from the keyboard and its internal wires on show. To the left lay my iPhone and its cracked screen.

He had a point, which spurred a conversation among those sitting around.

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“Your laptop looks like it’s about to blow up,” another said.

“Well, it’s not the Samsung Galaxy s7, so I reckon we will be okay,” a Portuguese lady joined.

Those surrounding me were certainly keen on technology, writing about it for a living and hailing from organisations like Forbes and VentureBeat, a major American media technology online site.

They mirrored the 50,000 attendees who were at the Web Summit held in Lisbon last week, the majority of whom had paid up to €700 for a regular attendee ticket.

Hundreds of hopeful people with start-up companies and ideas to pitch flooded Portugal’s capital city in the hope of networking, making partnerships and securing investment.

“In 2011, Scott Stanford was in Bruxelles, a little pub in Dublin, and he met this guy who had a start-up where you could order a cab in San Francisco. They hadn’t met before and his name was Travis. Two days later they went to the hotel to the business centre and Goldman Saachs invested €25m,” said Paddy Cosgrave, reminding people of the story behind Uber at the media conference on Tuesday afternoon.

This year’s event had 10,000 more attendees than 2015, which was then held in the RDS in Dublin. Though the food available to those keen on tech in the media room was not as good as what they’d received previously in Ireland, the MEO arena and FIL, Feira Internacional de Lisboa, certainly impressed.

The arena was filled with approximately 15,000 people – its full capacity – on the opening night of the ceremony, and the atmosphere was electric.

The stage design, lights, and a Mexican wave set the atmosphere before Paddy Cosgrave’s opening remarks. It made you wonder if you really were waiting for a tech conference or a concert to begin.

The following day the co-founder would say: “Someone yesterday said tech entrepreneurs are the new rock stars.”

The tone was set and for the following three days, hundreds of people would gather at stages in the FIL and MEO arena to hear what sport stars, musicians, those in the fashion industry and these tech rock stars had to say about none other than technology.

A scarily human-like artificial robot named Sofia, a musical instrument that fits in the palm of your hand, and talks about self-driving cars were among some of the things that featured throughout the week.

The daytime festivities carried on into the night as the centre of the city, Bairro-Alto, filled up with techies.

Pink Street, where most of the nightclubs are, was pulsing with people hopping from one establishment to the other – waving their Web Summit badges and handing out business cards. The conversations that featured during the day were regurgitated at night but what mostly dominated was talk of the US presidential election.

On Tuesday night, TVs hummed in the pubs and bars – a constant reminder the election results were being counted and there was a tight race underway. Just before hitting the pillow, Donald Trump was in the lead.

The following morning at the centre stage, a talk about the election results took place.

David Patrikarakos of the Daily Beast started the conversation by saying: “Given the atmosphere today, it doesn’t feel like moderating a panel but presiding over a wake.”

American actress Shailene Woodley, Bradley Tusk of Tusk Holdings – who has also run American political campaigns – and Owen Jones of The Guardian all spoke of the election of Trump, with Bradley Tusk saying he had cried that morning when he heard the results.

With the arena filled to its capacity, Paddy Cosgrave asked for the lights to be dimmed and everyone to light up the stadium with hope for the future using the flash on their phones.

The election results did not dampen the mood for too long and the Web Summit carried on, fulfilling its commitment as “Europe’s largest technology marketplace”.