Well my first CFDevCon is now over, and i'm glad to announce it was a big success.
I have received lots of positive feedback and praise so far and plenty of people have told me they will definitely come next year, so it was worth all the hard work and late nights.
The turnout reached my expectations which was around 200 people, which resulted in a nicely packed venue with the main room being about 3/4 full with room for a few tables for people to sit with their laptops, which was mainly the speakers tweaking their presentations, or actually writing them at the last minute (no names mentioned Alex).
New Atlanta and Charlie Arehart seemed very happy with the event and the turnout, so i'm really glad the trip was worth their while too.
I just wish I was able to sit still long enough to watch everyones talk myself.
The after party was also great fun, although only about half the delegates were able to stick around due to the need to catch trains and drive home, but those who did stay polished the tequila with gusto. The magician (Hugh Nightingale) also went down great and amazed everyone with his tricks. You always think that if you see these guys tricks face to face you will be able to suss out how they do it, but you can't. How he managed to turn my £10 note into a $50 bill I have no idea.
The only disapointment for me was the conference centres own hotel, which was a total dive. Thankfully it wasn't the only hotel, and most people I spoke to ended up staying at the Jury's inn instead, which luckily was right next door. If I hadn't had all my boxes of t-shirts and goody bags with me, I would have moved to the Jury's Inn as well, but I didn't fancy having to move it all just for the sake of 2 nights.
So if your ever in Croydon DO NOT stay at the Fairfield Hotel. The Fairfield Conference centre itself though is great.
As some other people have already started reviewing the event on their blogs, i'll just post their links here as I find them.
Mark Drew has posted a PDF of his presentation HERE and his photos HERE. Most of the pics of me are at the party, but I did actually wear a proper shirt and tie during the conference honest.
Andy Jarrett's review and pics
Nov 11, 2006 at 10:26 PM Hi Russ. Exelent conference. I'm really happy that I came. I just posted a rather lengthy post about it on my blog. Cheers.
Nov 11, 2006 at 11:15 PM Well done Russ think you did a sterling job. It was worth turning up just to see you in a tie ;-)
Nov 11, 2006 at 11:52 PM LOL, very funny Kola, I do actually wear a whole suit sometimes yaknow.
Nov 15, 2006 at 11:19 PM hey Russ, it was a great event - and it was great to see so many people. Let's build on it and make next years event even bigger.
You can download my slides from here if you want: http://succor.co.uk/index.cfm/2006/11/15/Report-on-cfDevcon06
Nov 17, 2006 at 10:10 AM Russ, brilliant event, cheers! Can't wait till the next one - tell us there is gonna be another one next year!
Nov 17, 2006 at 10:57 AM Yes, hopefully you heard my intro about the plans for forthcoming conferences. Next year CFDEVCON will hopefully be part of a bigger conference covering other technologies as well.
The primary technologies will be CF and .NET for which there will be specific tracks, with tracks on the more general web related things like AJAX, Web 2.0, XML, Javascript, SQL, Design Patterns.
While some people may groan and moan at the inclusion of .net, it is relevant and useful, especially with BlueDragon supporting .NET, and it is always good to have an insight of more than just CF.
Plus the .NET industry is much bigger and has a wider audience and more vendors/sponsors and will most likley cover the costs for the CF tracks as well. There was a severe lack of CF sponsors this year, not even Adobe were interested.
Nov 17, 2006 at 11:52 AM I missed your intro (I'm terrible at directions, I need a satnav!). That all sounds really good though, nice to cover a wide range of topics. Shame about Adboe not sponsoring. Considering Europe always seems to get left out, just look at the Max event locations. Hopefully next year they might see that there is a strong base out here too and do something about it!