It has just been pointed out to me that I haven't even mentioned CFDevCon on my own blog, DOH! So I guess I should do so really seeing as I am the one organising it. As you probably know I run cfdeveloper.co.uk, and a few years ago I did a little CFDeveloper party, I had Hal Helms over to do a presentation on Fusebox, gave away a few prizes, and aferwards we free thinks provided by some nice ladies from a sponsoring recruitment agency. All in all it was a good time had by all and I had a really good turnout and a great response, but this was back in the Allaire day so there was more of a tight community back then. I did intend to start doing these events regularly, but never really got around to it. Anyway recently I got a little depressed about the fact that I could never afford the money or time to go to CFUnited, and thought that a lot of other people must have the same problem, so I thought I should revive the CFDeveloper party. Then I thought no sod it, we have nothing in this country except user gorups, so lets do a proper UK conference, and thus CFDevCon was born.

Not wanting to bite off more than I could chew seeing as I would be doing this all by myself and not knowing what kind of response I would get, I opted to just do a 1 day mini conference this year, with bigger plans for next year depending how it went. You can see the result at www.cfdevcon.com

I have been rather disapointed with the lack of sponsors and the lack of interest from Adobe, but so far it has just about managed to pay for itself. All things considered 100+ delegates for the first conference isn't all bad, I have been told thi is a good turnout, especially when you consider that Cfunited only had as many people on their first event, and the USA is a hell of a lot bigger than the UK. Hopefully everyone will have such a great time they will tell everyone else to come next year.

One thing I will say, organising and hosting a conference all by yourself is very hard work, and I probably wouldn't recommend as something to do just for kicks, so i'm actually quite chuffed I have pulled it off. Although setting the date in the same month my wife is due to give birth was not a good idea, so fingers crossed the little guy isn't going to pop out early.

I will post again after the conference and let you know how it went.