Events and A Day, Belatedly
Published 14 years, 2 months pastI’m a bad conference organizer.
Why? Because we opened the An Event Apart 2010 schedule for sales back in, um, flippin’ November, and I never mentioned it here. Cripes, I never even posted when we announced the lineup of cities. I could go through the great big long sob-story list of reasons why 2009 was really tough and blah blah blah, but when you get right down to it, I fell down on my job.
Okay. So. Time to correct that.
(deep breath)
Hey everyone, check it out: the complete tour schedule for An Event Apart 2010! Woohoooo!
- Seattle: April 5-7, 2010 (yes, three days; more on that anon)
- Boston: May 24-25, 2010
- Minneapolis: July 26-27, 2010
- Washington, DC: September 16-17, 2010
- San Diego: November 1-2, 2010
We’ve got a pretty killer lineup, if I do say so myself. You can get the mostly-complete list from our opening-of-sales announcement last November. It lists the people we had confirmed at the time; there have been a few additions since then. Check out your city of choice to see who’s going to be there! (But always remember that speaker lineups are subject to change: speakers are people too, and life has a way of interfering with schedules. I myself had to withdraw from An Event Apart Boston last year due to a family emergency.)
The price to register for these two-day, one-track Events is the same as it was in 2009, and there are educational and group discounts available for those who are interested.
But wait, I just said “two-day” when the first show of the year is clearly three days. What gives?
Seattle is the site of our first-ever A Day Apart, a full-day workshop that can be attended on its own or as part of a full three days of Event Apart ecstasy. And the inaugural Day Apart will be nothing less than a detailed plunge into HTML 5 and CSS3 with Jeremy Keith and Dan Cederholm. Jeremy handles the markup; Dan gets stylish. It’s going to be fantastic. I’m going to be in the back of the room for the whole day, soaking up as much as I can.
If you want to attend just the workshop, it’s $399 for the whole day if you buy an early bird ticket (available through March 5th). The price goes up $50 when early bird ends, and another $100 if you show up at the door. But I wouldn’t recommend that last, because I don’t think there will be any tickets available at the door. Again: if you show up unannounced on the day of the workshop and ask to buy a ticket, we will most likely have to turn you away, because I expect that there won’t be any seats available.
On the other hand, maybe you’d like to experience more than just one day of AEA goodness. Maybe you’d like to go whole hog and attend both the two-day Event Apart and the subsequent Day Apart, soaking up all the knowledge and enthusiasm and camaraderie that typifies An Event Apart. And who could blame you? If you do that, then the total early bird price for all three days is $1,190, whereas buying the event and workshop passes separately would total $1,294. That’s right: you actually get slightly more than $100 off the cost of the workshop if you attend all three days, over and above the early bird discount. (Or you can think of it as getting $100+ off the cost of the conference. We’re not fussy.)
As it happens, these three-day passes have proved quite popular. So if you want to get your hands on one of those — or on any Seattle tickets, whether one, two, or three days — I wouldn’t wait too long. Our internal analyses suggest that there will come a time, some time before the doors open on April 5th, that the ability to buy a ticket will cease to be. It may even pine for a fjord or two.
As for the four shows that come after Seattle, well, they’re looking pretty popular too.
I know I say this every year, but I’m really excited about what we’ve got planned for the year. Jeffrey and I constantly and (we hope) consistently strive to create an event that we ourselves want to attend, and that’s absolutely true of the shows and workshop we have planned in 2010. I can’t wait to hear what the speakers and attendees have to share. Hope to see you there!
Comments (6)
I’m thinking to attend the Seattle event…How many people are you anticipating?
Grant: There are a maximum of 300 seats available in Seattle, so at this point that’s how many we’re expecting!
Cool. I’ve just gotten registered for AEA Seattle. It will be the first time I’ve attended an AEA event. Now to set up a hotel booking.
I attended AEA 2009 in Boston, and the speaker lineup for Boston 2010 looks to be the same (with I think one exception). While the topics are different, I’m wondering if it’s worth it to see the same speakers. I know you, Eric, would obviously have a bias, but I’m wondering how you feel on that issue? I know you weren’t at Boston last year, so there’s one obvious advantage to attending this year, but is there enough fresh perspective being brought to the event this year?
It’s true that the same speakers are returning, Daryl, but as you also point out they’re all presenting new talks. Whether there’s enough fresh perspective depends, I suppose, on what sort of perspective. If you’re looking for the kind of freshness brought by all-new speakers, then not really, no. If you’re looking for kind of freshness that comes from new insights and approaches, some of them grounded in (or even in reaction to) what’s gone before in our field, then I believe the answer is yes.
Put another way, while everyone on the stage is a really smart professional and great speaker, I wouldn’t have assembled this lineup if I thought it was just going to be a rehash of the same old ideas.
I’m going, I’m going… got my hotel too, next the plane/boat tickets…I’m going…I’m going.
I get to attend 1 coference every two years, I held out for this one… I’m going … :-)