Interview: Spike Ilacqua (Organizer)
Spike's Blog: https://spikex.dev
Transcript:
Travis Dockter: Okay, so
Travis Dockter: this is pretty casual 1st off. Thank you so much. For making the time. I
Travis Dockter: I think I heard you your interview. I think it was last year. With remote ruby
Travis Dockter: you know, leading up to Rocky Mountain Ruby. And yeah reached out, because, to give a little background, I
Travis Dockter: was kind of going to
Travis Dockter: Sin City ruby and rails comp every year. Those were kind of the main conferences that I started going to every year. And this year is the last year for both of those. So I was trying to think this year of like, okay, what do I? Wanna go to next? And
Travis Dockter: hopefully, Rocky Mountain Ruby will be will be one of those. But it also kind of got me thinking, what if I organized my own? And so
Travis Dockter: this is very early kind of exploring that I'm you know, 95%. Sure, I'm gonna do it. But still just kind of exploring. I wanna talk to as many people as I can that have organized their own conferences. And
Travis Dockter: I also would like to kind of document this whole process as well and hopefully. Other people that are W. You know, looking to organize a conference in the future could use this information try to, you know.
Travis Dockter: record all the interviews that I do kind of document my process as I go through it, and hopefully, that'll be useful to the community as well.
Spike Ilacqua: Think so.
Spike Ilacqua: Yeah, ruby Central has talked about having some kind of guide, and you know, so this can be.
Spike Ilacqua: yeah.
Travis Dockter: Yeah, it would be really cool if
Travis Dockter: maybe I could work with them to.
Spike Ilacqua: Kind of make this.
Travis Dockter: More official. But in the meantime it's very early on, and it's very kind of
Travis Dockter: impromptu and and casual. But to to get started. I know that you
Travis Dockter: kind of restarted Rocky Mountain ruby back in 2023. But did you have any conference organizing experience before that? Or was that the 1st time.
Spike Ilacqua: It was the 1st time.
Travis Dockter: Okay.
Spike Ilacqua: I had volunteered at Rocky Mountain, Ruby
Spike Ilacqua: back when Marty and Stefan were running it to do the Internet the Wi-fi back then it was unusual for venues to have Wi-fi, so we would have to bring in our own. I was running an Internet service provider.
Spike Ilacqua: So I had the the tech and the the know how to get in there and do it but that was pretty much the extent of it
Spike Ilacqua: that said I, ran a company for about 20 years, so running things with something that experienced with, you know, but conferences specifically not at all.
Travis Dockter: Gotcha? And how did that 1st one go? Did you?
Travis Dockter: Did it catch you off guard, or did you feel like you know? How did you feel that 1st year.
Spike Ilacqua: It actually went really well, better than I expected it to.
Travis Dockter: Oh, good!
Spike Ilacqua: I mean, I had the advantage of being able to talk to Marty, who had specific.
Spike Ilacqua: Experience with
Spike Ilacqua: with Rocky Mount Ruby, and also I was getting advice from Jeremy Smith, who was running the 1st year of Blue Ridge ruby. And that was really great, because he was like 6, 8 weeks ahead of me. And like. So his conference was gonna happen before me. So he would hit milestones before I did, and I could say, Hey, what did you do when it came time to find insurance like who knew you need insurance.
Spike Ilacqua: He knew that. And he's like, Oh, you know, this is what I did, and I could do the same thing. So that was super helpful. I also talked to Andy Kroll a bunch and he was very helpful. He's been running Brighton Ruby forever, so he has lots of advice.
Travis Dockter: Gotcha
Spike Ilacqua: That was super helpful.
Travis Dockter: Yeah, what was the hardest part would you say about organizing a conference.
Spike Ilacqua: For
Spike Ilacqua: well, I speak specifically to 2023, and then in general, 2023. My problem was a venue
Spike Ilacqua: Rocky Mountain. Rivie had traditionally been in a
Spike Ilacqua: place called Boulder Theater, which is an old movie theater that's been converted to a conference venue
Spike Ilacqua: and back when it was previously running. They were very happy to have us in there.
Spike Ilacqua: because it fills up the theater during the day, and we could be there till 5 or 6, and you know it's almost always available.
Spike Ilacqua: And when I talked to them this time they're like sorry bands load in at 2 o'clock now, because concerts. Starter post Covid, you know. Concerts started 8. Everybody goes home by 10, so you know we don't have it, you know, unless you want to be out by noon we can't do it. And then then there was a big scramble to just kind of find someone someplace that would take us, or during the school year, so we couldn't use. The university. Hotels are very expensive. There aren't a lot of other venues in Boulder that are
Spike Ilacqua: about the size we were looking for, so that was very difficult. And then we landed on E-town
Spike Ilacqua: Hall, and that turned out to be perfect, and
Spike Ilacqua: I hadn't even considered them, because somebody told me they were just super expensive, which turned out not to be true. And they've been great to work with, and we could talk about choosing a venue, because I think that's definitely
Spike Ilacqua: a there are a lot of choices there, and a lot of trade-offs.
Spike Ilacqua: But, generally speaking, you know the way I like to describe it is. It's not
Spike Ilacqua: difficult, but it is hard like. What you have to do is a Kanban board, right? You know you need to do this, and then this and then this, and make sure you've done that.
Spike Ilacqua: But it's it's straightforward, it. It's easy enough to put it into a checklist, or a board or something, but it's the amount of work that's hard like you really, you know, there's a lot of nights and weekends and and just getting stuff.
Spike Ilacqua: You know, there's always a deadline coming up, and then, as you get closer, there's just a lot of wrangling and last minute stuff and changes. And so that's that's the the thing. I think that's hard about running conferences. The time commitment.
Travis Dockter: Gotcha.
Travis Dockter: So on the I guess the business side of it.
Travis Dockter: did you? I I'm assuming that maybe Rocky Mountain ruby already had some sort of business organization or entity, or didn't.
Spike Ilacqua: No, I've had it, whatever it existed, it kind of gone away. So so I created. So yeah, so this is I mean, there's a obviously different ways. You can do it. My recommendation is set up a Llc.
Spike Ilacqua: And have that run the conference. It just, you know, keeps all the finances separate from whatever else I think back when Marty ran it, he actually ran it under his his consulting business.
Spike Ilacqua: But I think if it's just a distinct entity. Then. You know, with its own bank account, all the money is in its own place, you know. It's just simpler for taxes and all that.
Spike Ilacqua: we are not currently a nonprofit, but we, because of just a ton of paperwork, was something we'd like to do in the future and something that Ruby Central has talked about being able to help with, because I know, like the Python Foundation helps with that, just like filing all the paperwork that you have to do to be a nonprofit for, like
Spike Ilacqua: for the same sort of thing for conferences that run the pipeline conferences. And you know, various types of user groups and things like that. So that's something we'd like to do
Spike Ilacqua: in Colorado. I think it was 10 bucks to do an Llc.
Spike Ilacqua: Then I opened a bank account. Just let. I basically lent money to the Llc. To open a bank account
Spike Ilacqua: and with that. Then I could start paying people. I could get a a stripe account for the tickets and for getting money from sponsors, and just ran it that way.
Travis Dockter: Alright!
Travis Dockter: Was that?
Travis Dockter: Well, does that does becoming a nonprofit
Travis Dockter: like simplify or help the taxes cause? I mean.
Spike Ilacqua: Yeah.
Travis Dockter: Most of the time. You're not making a lot of money on conferences, anyway. So you might as well be a nonprofit. Is that kind of why, you're moving.
Spike Ilacqua: Yeah, I mean, it's well, yeah. Cause if you have money left over, you have to pay taxes on it, and.
Travis Dockter: And.
Spike Ilacqua: That's and and I don't mind doing that except it just seems like a waste. It's like money we could put back in next year or money we could donate to Ruby Central or the Boulder Ruby Group, or something like that, instead of just paying it on taxes.
Spike Ilacqua: so that's the main main reason. It does make it easier for people to give us money as well. If you know, if somebody wanted to donate.
Travis Dockter: Yeah.
Spike Ilacqua: Really can't donate to an Llc. So it's not tax deductible for them.
Spike Ilacqua: So there! There's some advantages to it. But at the moment. It's not worth the headache that it would. You know, you basically need an accountant who specializes in nonprofits at that point.
Travis Dockter: Gotcha. Okay, okay.
Travis Dockter: How did you?
Travis Dockter: Assuming you had one, I guess. How did you determine the the budget for your 1st one.
Spike Ilacqua: Very kind of back of the napkin. I just had a big spreadsheet and just kept
Spike Ilacqua: you know, where I could tweak the ticket prices, and guess at how many I would sell and that kind of thing. So
Spike Ilacqua: Let me back up a little bit and talk about picking the venue and the process. And that kind of leads to everything financially. So first, st I need to find a date.
Spike Ilacqua: and this is something that
Spike Ilacqua: you really need to do carefully, because that 1st year we overlapped with a marathon and it there was like a ironman or something, and it drove up the hotel prices.
Travis Dockter: Yeah.
Spike Ilacqua: And I didn't know that I did know. So
Spike Ilacqua: Boulder is where the University of Colorado is. Their football program is kind of popular and a lot more popular now that they have Deon Sanders as a coach. So it's just like you cannot get a hotel room if they're playing a game, so I can't pick those weekends. Boulder is a big outdoor activity time town. So you gotta avoid things like iron man's. And so finding a
Spike Ilacqua: a weekend where there's nothing big going on, and because we're at the end of September, beginning of October period, there's also the Jewish high holidays, and you don't. Wanna.
Spike Ilacqua: I don't wanna have my conference on those days and then have people not be able to come because
Spike Ilacqua: right?
Spike Ilacqua: So gotta nail a date, and then you gotta find a venue
Spike Ilacqua: and that's gonna be your biggest expense. So that
Spike Ilacqua: I want I did before I started dialing in the the budget was all right. Where can we be.
Travis Dockter: Yeah.
Spike Ilacqua: And then for the 1st year, and I got this idea from Jeremy Smith. We we went with sort of stretch goals like if we sell these many tickets we will have T-shirts, and if we sell these many tickets we will have breakfast, and and if we have cell we really go all the way and sell all the tickets we will have. We will record the conference and post the videos. And that was a
Spike Ilacqua: a good way to not overextend right?
Spike Ilacqua: And it was still a bit of a nail biter at the end, because I really wanted to do the videos. I think that
Spike Ilacqua: that is super valuable
Spike Ilacqua: to the people who are speaking, because now, when they, you know, wanna speak at a bigger conference or get a job. They can point to this video.
Spike Ilacqua: And it's also great promotion, right? For future years. So
Spike Ilacqua: that was important to me. But that was tough
Spike Ilacqua: and really came down to some last minute sponsorship we got, and you know.
Spike Ilacqua: on freaks who we use, and I highly recommend being only to kind of work on a payment plan with us.
Travis Dockter: Right is that?
Travis Dockter: I I have no idea what what prices are. I haven't dug into a lot of this stuff down to like, you know, I need to look into what venues in in Albuquerque.
Travis Dockter: Are like. That's where I am planning on having it right now. That's.
Spike Ilacqua: I was guessing from the big map behind you.
Travis Dockter: Yeah. But what is like.
Travis Dockter: general for for recording? Is that like to the tune of thousands of dollars? Do you have to.
Travis Dockter: Yes, buy them out, and.
Spike Ilacqua: They take care of. So this is, I'm speaking, specifically of con freaks who I highly.
Travis Dockter: And.
Spike Ilacqua: And they take care of like travel and hotel, but you have to pay for their time, so I would say they're the second biggest expense.
Spike Ilacqua: Let me budget behind venue.
Travis Dockter: Okay.
Spike Ilacqua: But I think it's worth it, because.
Travis Dockter: No.
Spike Ilacqua: So, for example, one conference I won't mention. They hired it. So so recording a conference is difficult, right? Because you need to get. Obviously you get the speakers and their audio.
Spike Ilacqua: and you need to get the slides without the slides. Most talks are just useless. So someone I know, hired a wedding photographer, friend of a friend seemed like a great deal, but they didn't know how to capture the slides, and
Spike Ilacqua: the audio wasn't great, and it took
Spike Ilacqua: like 6 months to get the videos out, because basically, what they had to do is ask everybody for their slide decks and then kind of manually create a video of the slide deck to go with it. And it's just so if you hire somebody who knows how to do this.
Travis Dockter: Goes a lot, smoother.
Spike Ilacqua: It goes a lot smoother, you know, and
Spike Ilacqua: in the case of confrees. We just you know they she records Cindy is the owner of that
Spike Ilacqua: she actually did a lightning talk at
Spike Ilacqua: Rocky Mount Mary! She did talk at the last ruby conference, because she's been, you know one. Her brother started this, and they've been involved in the ruby community forever. But they just know what they're doing. So you they record the video. You give them Logos. You give them all the sponsored information. And then boom videos turn up on Youtube. I mean, it's.
Travis Dockter: Yeah.
Spike Ilacqua: That one last thing to think about.
Travis Dockter: Right.
Spike Ilacqua: And so I recommend, I specifically recommend conflicts. But I definitely recommend working with somebody who's done this before. And if you take like a hotel as a venue. They'll often have
Spike Ilacqua: somebody who does this.
Travis Dockter: No.
Travis Dockter: Okay.
Spike Ilacqua: So.
Spike Ilacqua: So that was how I handled the finances of the 1st year. The second year was a little easier, because I had a sense of how many tickets we would sell. One thing that's really weird with
Spike Ilacqua: selling tickets is, you would think people would buy tickets in advance.
Spike Ilacqua: but they really don't. The 1st year we cut off ticket sales like a week out, because we just didn't want to deal with like, oh, no, we need more badges. We need more T-shirts, whatever. And we people just started complaining. I ended up selling like 30 odd tickets in the last week, and a con, you know, that was like
Spike Ilacqua: like 20% of the ticket sales happened like a week before the conference. And I think this.
Travis Dockter: Those are probably locals.
Spike Ilacqua: Yeah, that's exactly what I was. Gonna say, I think this is like, if your rails Comp or Rubicop, you probably don't have this problem, because there's far less locals. But I would say
Spike Ilacqua: half to, you know, 2 thirds to half of our people are are local. So and they just wait at the last minute, see if their boss will let them go, or whatever you know that kind of thing.
Travis Dockter: Yeah, yeah.
Spike Ilacqua: So that was kind of surprising.
Spike Ilacqua: But the second year was a little easier, because I knew to expect that. I knew, you know, by then I've all dialed in all the catering and everything. So I know what everything's gonna cost, you know, plus or minus inflation.
Spike Ilacqua: And it was much easier to get sponsors the second year, because we had. We could point to the videos of the you know, everything that had gone well with the previous year. So I had
Spike Ilacqua: more sponsors in
Spike Ilacqua: 2024, I think we'll do fine in 2025, with sponsorship, and that's a big, you know, like one sponsor can pay for the videos or the venue, or whatever.
Travis Dockter: How did you go about getting sponsors
Travis Dockter: the 1st year? Was it pretty much just like people in your network? Or how did you go work.
Spike Ilacqua: Yeah, it was. It was people in our network. So I just reached out to
Spike Ilacqua: people I know at big companies who are
Spike Ilacqua: who I thought might be able to come up with some
Spike Ilacqua: looking at my sponsor list from that year.
Spike Ilacqua: So I knew people at gusto and fusion off. And
Spike Ilacqua: they gave us some money.
Spike Ilacqua: And that was kind of enough that year. And we also like. So
Spike Ilacqua: when it comes to who's listed as a sponsor?
Spike Ilacqua: Anyone who paid for their own travel. So we were we were. We were. So we're
Spike Ilacqua: we offer a little stipend to speakers
Spike Ilacqua: $500 to, you know. Help with their trial. We can't afford. We're not, you know. We're not a conference that can afford to fly people out, but we offer that people turn turn who turned it down. We would then put their company as a sponsor, and basically, you know, the company's paying for travel.
Travis Dockter: Okay. Cool.
Travis Dockter: Okay.
Spike Ilacqua: So
Spike Ilacqua: if you look, you know, 2024 we had, like Podia and a few others, and it was just because, you know, they sent their own people out. Then in 2024
Spike Ilacqua: I think all of our sponsors reached out to me.
Spike Ilacqua: Once we announced the we opened the Cfp. They're like, Hey, can we sponsor you? And they were all people, I think 2 of the 3, and I can't remember who was who now but the big sponsors were honey, badger, App signal, and Dn. Simple.
Spike Ilacqua: 2 of them, 2 of the founders, had actually spoken at Rocky Mountain Review in the past, and the 3rd had attended like a bunch of times. So they had a they had that connection.
Travis Dockter: Yeah.
Spike Ilacqua: And that was definitely nice.
Travis Dockter: Yeah, is that when kind of from a timeline perspective, I was thinking or an order, maybe
Travis Dockter: I'm trying to start a year out. So I am shooting for something in May or June of next year. And I was thinking.
Travis Dockter: probably doing venue and sponsors first.st
Travis Dockter: Sponsors for me specifically is going to be really hard because I don't have a wide network
Travis Dockter: and I guess I was thinking, maybe start that earlier because it's gonna be hard. But at the same time
Travis Dockter: it's gonna be even harder. Because.
Travis Dockter: I don't know people. And I'm reaching out. And I'm saying like, Hey, this is my 1st conference. Never done this before. No idea how this is. Gonna go! Do you want to give me money?
Spike Ilacqua: Thank you.
Travis Dockter: But do were you getting sponsors like later in the process, or.
Spike Ilacqua: It was. That was a little later in the process.
Spike Ilacqua: you know, I started trying pretty pretty much as soon as I had the website and the.
Travis Dockter: Yeah.
Spike Ilacqua: And the sponsor reach heat up, and we should talk about that in a sec. But it did take a little while, and a little poking, and and that kind of thing.
Spike Ilacqua: I think you know
Spike Ilacqua: one of the things that Ruby Central wants to do post Rails conference help, and they're already doing this with meetups where they're connecting meetups with potential sponsors. So like the boulder ruby group has had a pizza sponsor
Spike Ilacqua: for the last few months through Ruby central
Spike Ilacqua: and so I think, you know, talking to Ali and all they can get you in front of people. Now, will they give you money? That's a harder thing. But one of the things Ruby Central is really trying to do with, you know, especially with the bigger
Spike Ilacqua: rail shops, is like, Hey, you know.
Spike Ilacqua: we're not doing rose comp anymore.
Spike Ilacqua: But you can get we can get you in front of.
Spike Ilacqua: you know, 30 ruby groups, 50 ruby groups and 10 conferences. So
Spike Ilacqua: work together on that. So I think that's, you know, working that network
Spike Ilacqua: and not necessarily going directly to the sponsors, you know, beyond Ruby Central like. But if you're friends with you know Jason Sweat, who who can he connect you with right? Because that personal connection, I think, works better than just like, you know, reaching out cold to Cisco, or something like that. Right? So that's definitely my advice there.
Spike Ilacqua: So
Spike Ilacqua: yeah, I mean, I think, like, in terms of timeline, I said. You know, pick a date, get a venue cause. Venues are the thing you have to book out the furthest. Build a website and put up your sponsor sheet right? I just copied mine for blue, red, ruby. You could copy mine, you know you could copy somebody else's and be flexible on it.
Spike Ilacqua: So you know ours. As I think we've got what we've got. We went into the jewel theme because Rocky Mountain past, we have, like emerald.
Spike Ilacqua: a 2,000 sapphire at 4,000, and Rumi at 5,000, and then, you know, you get recognition. There's some stuff everybody gets to get their logo on the site. They get their recognition, and then it's like, Well, where are you on the page? And
Spike Ilacqua: you know how many tickets complementary tickets does your organization get? Do you get a table or not?
Spike Ilacqua: like at the top tier. You get a table to yourself at the middle tier you get to share one at the bottom tier. You can just put your stickers wherever right.
Spike Ilacqua: But we were not and I don't recommend being
Spike Ilacqua: like particularly hard ass with this right like, be flexible. What do they actually want. Maybe if they're not hiring, they might not want a table right, they might just want to put their stickers out. They might, you know, want a little bump up. They might want an in between amount of money, because that's what they're, you know.
Spike Ilacqua: like fine. If you can give me $3,000. I'll give you the sapphire thing right? I mean, it's like.
Travis Dockter: You want them to sponsor you. It's not ultimately, aside from.
Spike Ilacqua: You know, if you sell out, you're not costing you that much to do this right.
Travis Dockter: So, yeah.
Spike Ilacqua: Be work with them sometimes. They wanna you know, we've talked to them. Nobody's actually taken us up on this. But other things like, you know, host, a game night. Right? That'd be great right? Which up as a sponsor you know, an after party or organize a hike. You know I'm happy to put you on the website.
Spike Ilacqua: Cause that stuff around the conference is also very helpful.
Spike Ilacqua: Once you have a site and you have a sponsor sheet. That's when I start started reaching out to people that it does get easier
Spike Ilacqua: to do things. Of course, once you have some talks up so.
Spike Ilacqua: We people do different things like some folks put their tickets on sale as soon as they have a date. We generally have waited until
Spike Ilacqua: we've picked the speakers, because then we can say, this is what your
Spike Ilacqua: paying for, right? This is why you want to come. Aside from how cool we are. Here's the actual talks. This year.
Spike Ilacqua: I think we're gonna have a keynote that we can pre announce before the Cfp closes.
Spike Ilacqua: We're still talking about that. But
Spike Ilacqua: we've gotten the point where we can probably have an invited keynote and that is something
Spike Ilacqua: that's enough of a splash, I think for us to start selling tickets, but if you're comfortable selling them from the beginning, and think people want to come to Albert, or even you can do that, too, I mean, I don't think there's a right answer there.
Spike Ilacqua: It's for my thought. My thought the 1st few years, anyway, was like, we don't. You know, we've been gone for 5 years or so.
Spike Ilacqua: we're not rupeecom for rails. Comp, people aren't just gonna automatically buy tickets. So now that we've done this a few years. We have a reputation, I think, putting tickets on sale before
Spike Ilacqua: we have the full program built out is okay.
Travis Dockter: Yeah, what did you mean when you said you've reached the point where you can have an invited keynote.
Spike Ilacqua: just that, you know. Now we have enough of a reputation that people are. People are always telling us they want to come so.
Travis Dockter: Hmm.
Spike Ilacqua: I mean, we could always do that right and
Spike Ilacqua: But in the past years.
Travis Dockter: Did you invite people in the in the past years.
Spike Ilacqua: No? Well, we tried to and couldn't find anyone who would come. So that cause I mean again, we were new and like people didn't know what to expect, and and.
Travis Dockter: Yeah.
Spike Ilacqua: We'll talk about scheduling like the biggest mistake we made the 1st year was not the Marathon. I had forgotten this part, but Rails world was the week before.
Travis Dockter: Oh, yeah.
Spike Ilacqua: And and it was like the beginning of the same week, actually. And then Thai Ruby was the same days that we were so like everyone I reached out to was either at rails world or
Spike Ilacqua: Hi Ruby. And why wouldn't you be, you know.
Spike Ilacqua: So this year we're not near Tyroe moved. Change the time of year and rails. World is a couple of weeks before last year we, for whatever reason we didn't really try, or this year. I think we're, gonna you know, reach out to some names in the we already have names in the community and see if anybody just wants to come, and and so then we can do that. But you know, I mean, there's no reason not to do that your 1st year. If you have the connections.
Spike Ilacqua: There's somebody you think would be a drawer, or somebody, you know, gives a good talk.
Spike Ilacqua: Then no reason to not ask them. Put them on the program.
Spike Ilacqua: and, you know, have something you can post to social media.
Spike Ilacqua: Yeah?
Spike Ilacqua: So.
Travis Dockter: Yeah, did you?
Travis Dockter: So for all speakers, you offer that stipend and everybody.
Travis Dockter: Yeah, same stipend.
Spike Ilacqua: Yeah.
Travis Dockter: Gotcha.
Spike Ilacqua: And we, you know, I mean.
Spike Ilacqua: you don't have to. Rocky Mount Ruby didn't in the past. I mean, there's like there's different
Spike Ilacqua: philosophies like, I know when Marty ran it. He never did like, just, you know. Sorry we can't afford that and then there are other conferences that you know, pay the full thing. And we we looked at those numbers. And it's like this is no way we could make that work. So we just settled on the middle of the and we we're gonna review that again this year.
Travis Dockter: No.
Spike Ilacqua: Most people don't take it, though. So
Spike Ilacqua: I think it's a nice thing to offer
Spike Ilacqua: to people who are coming great distances and juniors who may not be able to afford it on their own.
Spike Ilacqua: But we we make it clear like, you know, this is, we do not have a lot of money, so if you don't need it, please, just you know we'll give you sponsor credit.
Spike Ilacqua: But we, you know so.
Travis Dockter: That makes sense.
Spike Ilacqua: But yeah, I mean, it's something I might consider not, you know.
Spike Ilacqua: I might consider not doing it your 1st year, just because it is really hard to budget for.
Travis Dockter: Yeah.
Travis Dockter: When you were network or not network, when you were marketing, the conference
Travis Dockter: was there anything that like, you did that unexpectedly.
Travis Dockter: Got you like a bunch of people bought tickets because you did this one thing.
Travis Dockter: Couple of things worked well, I mean, so we did a lot of social media stuff and a lot of Linkedin Linkedin, I think, is the best place these days, because social media is in a weird state. I mean, we still have a.
Spike Ilacqua: Twitter account. I don't know how we feel about it. We have a blue sky account, but I think most of our interactions come through Linkedin
Spike Ilacqua: so that worked and one of the things that I noticed a big bump of ticket sales was, you know, so Linkedin.
Spike Ilacqua: whatever their algorithm is
Spike Ilacqua: it seems pretty localized like who sees your message. I mean, it's in your network. But like people outside of your network, I think it's more like your town
Spike Ilacqua: and we got a big bump when I got some of my friends who are in Denver to post stuff, because I think. Then it got shown to more people in Denver.
Spike Ilacqua: So that was pretty effective. So you know, think about like
Spike Ilacqua: getting folks, you know, who are
Spike Ilacqua: in places that people might drive to your conference from to to share it like not just reshare, but actually share it. That seems to do something in the linkedin algorithm. The other thing, I actually really good luck with was Podcasts. So we reached out to a bunch of podcasts. I had a friend who's a
Spike Ilacqua: who does some podcast editing put together a 30 second clip for me.
Travis Dockter: And then I sent it out to.
Spike Ilacqua: Where did it go? Ruby on rails, podcast. Coding coders with Drew Bragg. The bike shed.
Spike Ilacqua: Well, there's remote ruby and just having them play, that I think definitely helps.
Spike Ilacqua: and they're all, you know, happy to do it right.
Travis Dockter: So that was like kind of like an ad spot for.
Spike Ilacqua: Yeah and ad spot, and I offered to pay, and nobody of them. No, none of them made me so.
Spike Ilacqua: But and that's something you need to do way in advance, because, you know, the the
Spike Ilacqua: people's editorial calendars tend to.
Travis Dockter: Okay.
Travis Dockter: So they're booked looking like months out.
Spike Ilacqua: Exactly.
Travis Dockter: Gotcha. Okay.
Spike Ilacqua: Going on podcasts. The 1st year I went on,
Spike Ilacqua: on ruby, on rails podcast with Britney Martin. And you heard us on Remote ruby we're gonna be on. Oh, derails conf next week. So just getting on on, you know, getting out there.
Spike Ilacqua: And now, of course, we have
Spike Ilacqua: There's a ruby Conf, ruby conferences website.
Spike Ilacqua: where you can just make a pull request and put your conference in Ruby company.
Spike Ilacqua: That org the ruby central Slack is very active now.
Spike Ilacqua: So that's a great place to just promote stuff. And then there's also there. It's less popular since they rolled out their slack, but they they also. There's also ruby central discord.
Spike Ilacqua: So that's those are all good places to start looking for. People.
Travis Dockter: Was there anything that you did when you were marketing that was just like a waste of time? And don't do it.
Spike Ilacqua: Not really, and only cause we didn't. You know we didn't try much because we didn't have a budget.
Travis Dockter: Yeah, like.
Spike Ilacqua: We had run ads or something. I don't. I don't. You know.
Travis Dockter: Yeah.
Spike Ilacqua: We looked at Facebook ads and Twitter ads and things like that just decided it wasn't.
Travis Dockter: Yeah.
Spike Ilacqua: What's that?
Travis Dockter: Gotcha.
Travis Dockter: Okay, do you have any? Do you go a lot of to a lot of conferences yourself?
Spike Ilacqua: Not really
Spike Ilacqua: I've been going to more. So I've since
Spike Ilacqua: 2022. I've gone to most of the ruby and rails. Comp. I'll be going to Railsconf in July. I hope to go to Ruby Conf.
Spike Ilacqua: In the past. I did. I mean, I always go to Rocky Mountain ruby. And then there was Mountain Rest West Ruby in
Spike Ilacqua: Salt Lake City, so I'd go to at least 2 a year.
Spike Ilacqua: I used to be
Spike Ilacqua: not good at conferences, you know, like many of us, kind of an introvert and shy, and those kind of things some point in my life. I stopped caring like
Spike Ilacqua: care what people think about me.
Spike Ilacqua: They're gonna like me, or they won't, and turns out most of the time they do so.
Travis Dockter: It's like.
Spike Ilacqua: Got better at just like, you know, hey? I'll just go talk to this random person and see what they're
Spike Ilacqua: and that.
Travis Dockter: Definitely. Is there anything that you do?
Travis Dockter: At your conferences to
Travis Dockter: kind of make it, you know a better experience. Where people do you think that that's the main
Travis Dockter: kind of thing for conferences is the social aspect. Because, you know
Travis Dockter: a lot of these things. A lot of these talks could be a blog post or a Youtube video, right? It's nice to see them in person. But do you think that social like socialization is the main point of conferences.
Spike Ilacqua: I do, and you need talks cause otherwise, why would your boss let you go.
Travis Dockter: Right, yeah.
Spike Ilacqua: I do learn stuff right? I mean to your point. Talks are often better in person, and
Spike Ilacqua: and you know and I I learn stuff, you know, even at my own conference.
Spike Ilacqua: you know, my, my big takeaway from 2024 was pack work. I hadn't learned anything about that framework. But you know, as I work on bigger projects, like having having that kind of thing. And you get different perspectives. And that's always handy, you know, we we try to mix because we're not a rails conference. We try to mix in other frameworks and things like that. So I learned a lot about hanami and and
Spike Ilacqua: I may never use it, but just knowing that there are different ways that people do things and think about things is is super helpful.
Travis Dockter: The advantage of a small conference like Rocky Mountain ruby is, we can do both right.
Spike Ilacqua: So we do.
Spike Ilacqua: A total of 16 talks, just 8 talks a day. We have half, we do 2 talks, a half hour, break 2 talks, half hour break. So there's lots of time. The venue is really nice, because it's a it's a concert venue. So the big concert hall. But then downstairs there's like a bar area where people can just hang and talk to each other. We and and Colorado in October is like one of our best months weather, wise.
Travis Dockter: Yeah.
Spike Ilacqua: Probably similar to New Mexico. Just not too hot. It's sunny, it doesn't rain so people will go hang out outside.
Spike Ilacqua: And then the other thing, and I totally stole this from Blue Ridge, and I think they stole it from
Spike Ilacqua: Brian Ruby is we just do open lunch.
Spike Ilacqua: that gives. So we'd have a 2 h block. Just go out in the world and have lunch. We have a list of restaurants. Boulder is a big foodie town. So it's super easy for people to just go out. We we actively help try to, you know, find people find groups.
Spike Ilacqua: and so that's really great for the social aspects.
Spike Ilacqua: It's also great for the budget, because catering lunch is expensive and usually not great. So
Spike Ilacqua: that is a big part of what we do, and then the afternoon we again continue to have big breaks and that's easier to do in a small conference when it's single track like you're gonna see all the talks. And I think there's something to like people in a single track conference. Everyone sees the same talks. So they all have the same frame of reference when they're talking in between, whereas at like ruby, Comp for rails, comp. You know where there's 3 or 5 tracks like you're more scattered if you're going to all the talks.
Travis Dockter: Yeah.
Spike Ilacqua: I do think that you know Ruby and rails comp. The hack day they have now has really helped with that social aspect. Right think they're calling community now, but like having a day where it's less structured and people can just hang out.
Spike Ilacqua: I think works well.
Spike Ilacqua: So there's lots of different ways to do it. But that's what we
Spike Ilacqua: we landed on, and it works well. And then there's just stuff we can do to encourage, like my co organizer, Becky.
Spike Ilacqua: came back from Brail's world with the Pac-man idea. Just like whenever you're in a circle, open up a little wedge, so that there's always room for someone else to join the conversation.
Spike Ilacqua: So we promote that kind of like, hey, talk to your neighbors like talk to the juniors like, if you see somebody who's just, you know clearly, just standing on the sidelines, try talking to them and be respectful if they just don't want to talk at school, but usually, you know, you can engage with somebody, and they'll want to talk. And so we really push that because to your point. I think
Spike Ilacqua: there's value out of the tech stuff you learn. But
Spike Ilacqua: you're gonna make connections that
Spike Ilacqua: are gonna just be useful to have in your career, or are gonna be fun, or you know.
Travis Dockter: There he is!
Spike Ilacqua: I now know all these people from doing this I didn't know before, like, you know, Chris Holler and Drew Bragg and Nadia. And you know, it's just. You know my circle has greatly expanded, and these are people I can reach out to.
Spike Ilacqua: And you know. Ask when I have a question, or, you know, help me with a job, search or help them. You know. I mean, it's.
Travis Dockter: Yeah.
Spike Ilacqua: It's really nice to have a community.
Travis Dockter: Yeah, definitely
Travis Dockter: alright. Well, we're coming up on time. I wanted to be respectful of your time. But do you have any other advice that you can think of for a 1st time.
Spike Ilacqua: Yes, my biggest advice is, get all the volunteers you can. I could not have done it without them.
Spike Ilacqua: So I'm fortunate that in Boulder. We have a good
Spike Ilacqua: ruby meetup that's been going for 20 years now, I think. And we have a slack
Spike Ilacqua: where everyone just kind of hangs out. So I was able to reach out and say, Hey, anyone want to volunteer? I'll give you a ticket, you know, basically. And so very quickly out of that. I got someone who was who's good at social media, and she's still doing that for us. And
Spike Ilacqua: I got someone who's willing to tackle the catering because we do. We do cater breakfast, so you gotta find somebody.
Travis Dockter: For you.
Spike Ilacqua: Take care of all that
Spike Ilacqua: And then there was Becky, who just volunteered to help with with swag. We learned a lot about swag. This is another quick advice. You have to order it way earlier than you think.
Spike Ilacqua: Cause all those places are like, hey? We could turn T-shirts around in 2 days. That's only if they're not busy and they're always
Spike Ilacqua: cheers.
Spike Ilacqua: So it turns out to be like a month, and that's like the scariest things like, how many people are actually coming, and what size T-shirts do they need? And so what we do is actually cut it off and say, like, you know, 2 weeks out like we're not going to guarantee you a T-shirt, or you can pay more, and we'll order a T-shirt for you after
Spike Ilacqua: and you know you have a whole like chart of like all right. How many people are wearing? You know? What is? What is this likely sizes that we need that kind of stuff, but ultimately.
Travis Dockter: Yeah.
Spike Ilacqua: Think
Spike Ilacqua: so. Becky volunteered to do that. Shirts, stickers, badges, and she just kept doing other things. So at the end of it I'm like. Look, you've done so much work. You're an hour, if you're willing, you could be the Co organizer and take credit for this and put it on your Linkedin and all that. And so
Spike Ilacqua: that's how I ended up with a Co organizer. And
Spike Ilacqua: but yeah, you definitely need. You can't do everything or you can. But you're gonna make yourself nuts. So just finding those people who are willing to take on just one task right? Most of the socials
Spike Ilacqua: so call around caters and see who's available that kind of thing. It's just so important.
Travis Dockter: Yeah.
Spike Ilacqua: And people like to do it. I mean, if they like to be involved. And then day of we have a whole bunch of people who
Spike Ilacqua: are just there to help, like other, you know, answer questions. You know they get a volunteer shirt, and you know their role is to just after we do after we check people, and just, you know, be there. And if somebody
Spike Ilacqua: to know where there's a
Spike Ilacqua: Vegan restaurant or gluten Free restaurant, where's the restaurant, you know, like they can just answer that.
Travis Dockter: So that you don't have to be doing everything.
Travis Dockter: Yeah, that I I'm thinking about that. And I was wondering if
Travis Dockter: what is the trade off, or is there a trade off? Maybe there's not. Maybe it's a no brainer. But in my mind I was like, Okay, am I inviting extra complexity by bringing in volunteers. And then, if you know, having to manage
Travis Dockter: multiple people moving in multiple, you know
Travis Dockter: paths at the same time, am I inviting extra complexity that way versus if I did everything myself, of course it's gonna be more strain on one person. But.
Spike Ilacqua: Yes.
Travis Dockter: I don't know.
Spike Ilacqua: My, I would say, I mean, it's it's
Spike Ilacqua: I'm definitely a person over my career who's tended to. I'll you know, screw it. I'll just do it myself. Kind of a person.
Spike Ilacqua: I
Spike Ilacqua: but I would say, you're gonna make yourself nuts like, just did I post? It's 3 in the morning. Did I post the social yesterday like I was supposed to like.
Travis Dockter: Yeah.
Spike Ilacqua: The cater hasn't gotten back to me with the, you know, pricing, you know.
Spike Ilacqua: Damn it, I need to get the insurance.
Spike Ilacqua: I I think at the end of the day you'll have a better conference and a better experience for yourself, and want to do it again. If you have volunteers, and the other thing is like, you know all of this, and this should be general advice. Somebody who wants to
Spike Ilacqua: run a conferences. These are good skills to have right as you advance in your career of ultimately, even if you stay
Spike Ilacqua: on the IC track as I I pretty much have. You still gonna have to move people around, you know.
Travis Dockter: Right.
Spike Ilacqua: You're gonna be working with juniors. You're gonna have to give them tasks, and you're just gonna have to deal with that. And this is a great way to practice it right?
Travis Dockter: True.
Spike Ilacqua: Cause. This is the case where worst case scenario, somebody, you know, turns out to be a flake and doesn't post a social media. You can do it. But
Spike Ilacqua: find good people. I mean, I think, the the way, it shook out for me.
Spike Ilacqua: what and and this was just luck. But the people who who had the bigger tasks and were willing to take on the bigger tasks, tended to be the more senior people. Right? They were older. They've been around, you know. They know how to own something.
Travis Dockter: And then.
Spike Ilacqua: The people who were the day of volunteers tended to be the cold school kids and the recent graduates and things like that. And they were great for that, because they were very enthusiastic. They know what it is to, you know.
Spike Ilacqua: feel like a fish out of water, because they kind of do. And and so that just kind of worked out like.
Travis Dockter: Yeah.
Spike Ilacqua: So I would definitely say, like, when you're looking at volunteers, you know, if if you have a look at their Linkedin, get a sense of their strengths. Are they an engineering manager? Well, then, you can give them the hardest task. Right? Are they? A recent grad, then, you know. Maybe give them something more
Spike Ilacqua: people focused.
Spike Ilacqua: But I think it's worth it. And you know, maybe you find your Co organizer.
Travis Dockter: Or or whatever I mean. Cause one of the things I'm I'm thinking about this. I don't wanna do this forever. Right?
Travis Dockter: Yeah.
Spike Ilacqua: My son's graduating high school. He's gonna go off to college eventually. We want to travel more or whatever you know. Sooner or later I'll retire. But I would like this conference to keep going. So I wanna build it in a way, you know, and that goes back to the legal structure and all that, that I can hand it off
Spike Ilacqua: so somewhere else, and that someone else should be somebody who's
Spike Ilacqua: been a volunteer, or at least gone to it and understands it is passionate about it. So
Spike Ilacqua: another good reason to have volunteers and Co. Organizers and such.
Travis Dockter: Gotcha. Yeah, that makes sense, alrighty. Well, I appreciate your time and.
Spike Ilacqua: I'm happy to do it.
Travis Dockter: Actually last question, who should I talk to next.
Spike Ilacqua: Have you talked to Andy Kroll.
Travis Dockter: I have not.
Spike Ilacqua: I would go to Andy Kroll, cause he is just.
Travis Dockter: Did he do one ruby friend or.
Spike Ilacqua: Yeah, he does that. He does the Brighton. His big thing is bright and ruby. Conference. So he's been running Brighton ruby forever.
Spike Ilacqua: and that's a i think it's 1 day, and it's big. It's like,
Spike Ilacqua: you know, pushing a thousand people, I think at some points, maybe a little smaller post, Covid. But it's 1 of the biggest small conferences. And yeah, he does everything. The part of you know. Part of my backstory here is that
Spike Ilacqua: I decided to do this after going to Ruby Comp. Mini in 2022, and that was a side conference that was spun off for people who didn't want to go to Texas because of politics
Spike Ilacqua: and run by the founders of W
Spike Ilacqua: Wnrb. The women in non-binary Gemma Gemma Azarov and Emily Stamper, and that they had no idea how to run a conference, and Andy volunteered to
Spike Ilacqua: come out to the United States and help them do it. And so he's the guy for for running conferences.
Travis Dockter: Okay. Wow, yeah.
Spike Ilacqua: Recommend talking to him.
Travis Dockter: I'll definitely reach out to him.
Travis Dockter: I did do the one. So I forget the exact name. But the ruby friend, yeah.
Travis Dockter: he was putting on. I did that. So I have, you know, interacted with him over email.
Spike Ilacqua: Oh, yeah.
Travis Dockter: Briefly, but I'll definitely reach out to him.
Spike Ilacqua: Yeah, he's a nice guy.
Spike Ilacqua: So yeah, I reckon, and definitely like years and years of experience that you can lean on.
Travis Dockter: Cool, alrighty. Thank you so much for your time, Spike. Yeah.
Spike Ilacqua: Nice meeting, you.
Travis Dockter: I hopefully, will be in Rocky Mountain ruby September October this year, right.
Spike Ilacqua: October, October 6, th and 7.th
Travis Dockter: Okay, perfect. I hope to meet you in person. There.
Spike Ilacqua: Yeah, definitely. And I'll keep an eye because Albuquerque is not that hard for me and a city I love so.
Travis Dockter: Yeah, awesome. Awesome. I'm hoping it'll it'll draw some people. It's not, you know.
Spike Ilacqua: Not San Jose.
Travis Dockter: You're right right. But hopefully, people will come and then go visit Santa Fe. Yes, so alrighty. Well, I hope you have a great rest of your day, and.
Spike Ilacqua: Feel free to reach out. If you have any other questions.
Travis Dockter: Alrighty sounds great, thank you.