Held in Telluride, Colorado, August 11th through 14th, 2000, the first annual Festival was organized to celebrate the past, present and future of technology. The past, represented by Electric Age inventors and engineers: George Westinghouse, Nikola Tesla and L.L. Nunn. (Nunn was responsible for the construction of the first alternating current power plant for a mine in 1891, using the technology of Tesla and Westinghouse.) The current and future, represented by software gurus: Richard Stallman, Raymond Kurzweil and John Perry Barlow. Society Executive Secretary William Terbo spoke on the personality of Nikola Tesla.

One of the outstanding events of the Festival was the nightly demonstration of the 1.5 million volt 12-foot Tesla Coil operated by veteran Coil builder Bill Wysock. Nearly 500 people gathered each night on Telluride's closed main street for the show. At a local altitude of 9,000 feet, the Coil generated brilliant lightning bolts of as much as 20 feet.