Interview: Jason Swett (Organizer)
Jason's X: https://www.x.com/JasonSwett
Jason's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonswett/
Transcript
Travis Dockter: Okay, all right. Well, welcome to these.
Travis Dockter: I've been saying many different adjectives, but
Travis Dockter: impromptu unofficial, or a couple of them organizer chats that I've been having. A little bit of context for you. So actually,
Travis Dockter: you are the organizer of, or former organizer, we'll say of Sin City ruby, which is going to be an interesting chat
Travis Dockter: specifically, because you're the 1st organizer that I'm speaking to, that I actually have been to your conference multiple times.
Travis Dockter: so that's gonna
Travis Dockter: kind of get to see a little bit of behind the scenes of a conference that I got to see. You know, from a firsthand perspective. And you also have a kind of an interesting
Travis Dockter: and ask people about their 1st conference, because I kind of want to know, like, maybe
Travis Dockter: what they learned from their 1st conference to their last conference and kind of you know what what their 1st experience was like, so that maybe I can avoid some of the pitfalls, or just do some of the things as if I were a more experienced organizer. Right? So
Travis Dockter: you have a very unique origin story for your conference, because you never planned to have a conference. At 1st you booked space for a class, and then you found it hard to sell tickets for a class. And so you pivoted to
Travis Dockter: what was that? What was that experience like. And what was it like to
Travis Dockter: kind of have in mind? Okay, I'm I'm doing this class. And then all of a sudden, you're organizing a conference. What was that kind of like.
Jason Swett: Yeah, it was not as big of a deal as it might sound like, because
Jason Swett: conference doesn't have to mean like a big
Jason Swett: rails Comp type thing or something like that. It can just be a small get together. And I had talked previously with Andy Kroll, who organizes Bright and Ruby.
Jason Swett: and he had said that when he did the 1st Brighton ruby he planned it such that if only 50 people came that would be okay.
Jason Swett: And so I kept that in mind.
Jason Swett: and indeed we had maybe about 40 people ultimately come to that 1st one
Jason Swett: and it was okay. I lost a little bit of money, but not much
Jason Swett: and it felt kind of like a meetup, almost, because it was just small. I've certainly been to meetups that are a lot bigger than the 1st Sin City ruby was.
Jason Swett: So yeah, it. It didn't feel like that big of a deal.
Jason Swett: There was some money on the line and all that stuff. But the numbers weren't huge, and it wasn't all that stressful.
Travis Dockter: Did you?
Travis Dockter: Or you knew you were organizing a conference, or once you knew you were organizing conference. Then you reached out to him.
Travis Dockter: When did that conversation happen?
Jason Swett: Sorry the connection's a little choppy. Can you say that again?
Travis Dockter: Okay, yeah. So when did you did you talk to Andy Kroll after
Travis Dockter: conference and like, reached out to him.
Jason Swett: No. I think I talked to him before, just on the podcast. On the code, with Jason podcast.
Travis Dockter: Oh, okay, nice gotcha how long did you have
Travis Dockter: to kind of pull that 1st one together? And was it kind of a rush to like, get speakers and sponsors and stuff. How much of that were you able to do.
Jason Swett: I had a decent amount of time.
Jason Swett: I remember that it was 2022 when the conference occurred, and so I had started planning it
Jason Swett: around the fall of 2021, so fall of 2021 to
Jason Swett: march, or April of 2022.
Jason Swett: So I had a number of months.
Travis Dockter: Okay.
Jason Swett: For me. Getting speakers was easy. I chose not to do a Cfp. Or anything like that, because I wanted to to keep the
Jason Swett: the workload as light as possible.
Jason Swett: So I just handpicked the speakers.
Jason Swett: And I already knew people from my podcast so that was pretty easy
Jason Swett: and then let's see, there was another part of your question, but I don't remember what it was.
Travis Dockter: Were there? Were there any sponsors for that 1st one.
Jason Swett: No, I chose not to do sponsors, because again, I wanted to keep the workload light and keep it simple.
Travis Dockter: Gotcha. So did you? Did you?
Travis Dockter: That you could like try to break even with just ticket sales for that for that 1st one.
Jason Swett: Yeah. I thought there was a good likelihood that I could break even, and I came pretty close. I think we lost like 2,000 bucks on that event.
Jason Swett: And it was here. Here's a mistake that I made.
Jason Swett: So my wife core co-organizes the event. That's not the mistake.
Jason Swett: I'm just saying that for context. But we chose to do catering for that 1st conference.
Travis Dockter: Hmm.
Jason Swett: and it cost it cost an insane amount. I don't remember, but it was like 40 bucks a person, for, like a crappy sandwich, and some chips, or something like that.
Travis Dockter: Yeah.
Jason Swett: And so I don't know. 40 times 40 is 1,600. It was, I think it was more than that even but like nobody. It turns out nobody was expecting us to provide food, and, like hardly anybody, even ate the food they like, went out to lunch.
Travis Dockter: Yeah.
Jason Swett: And so that was kind of just like a total waste. And if we hadn't done that we would have been in the black instead of in the red.
Travis Dockter: Right.
Jason Swett: For the following 2 years, because I did it a total of 3 times the following 2 years. I didn't do catering.
Travis Dockter: Gotcha? Yeah.
Travis Dockter: when you went to do sponsors the second year, did that factor in like, did you come up with a budget of like, okay, I'm gonna set ticket prices here. And I, wanna, I have a goal of like getting this much sponsorship money. Did you kind of plan that out that way, or how did you think about that?
Jason Swett: I didn't have a goal. I just wanted to get as many sponsors as I realistically could.
Jason Swett: so I did no sponsors the 1st 2 years, and then the 3rd and final year was the only year in which I did sponsors. I just made a list of like the
Jason Swett: places that I knew of, that I thought might be sponsors like I looked at people who had sponsored other conferences and stuff like that, and I thought of like people I knew and stuff like that. I think the 1st place I reached out to was evil Martians, because I know arena from evil Martians, and I know that they sponsor a lot of conferences. So I reached out to her and she said, Yes.
Jason Swett: got a couple other sponsors, too.
Jason Swett: and financially that helped out a lot.
Jason Swett: I think I got somewhere in the neighborhood of like $10,000 worth of sponsorship that 3rd year.
Jason Swett: Gotcha.
Jason Swett: But the expenses for that 3rd year were also really high, and I ended up losing
Jason Swett: a lot of money. But that's a different story with the sponsors. Yeah, I just kind of made a list, and then went through and asked people. Some people said no, and some people said, Yes.
Travis Dockter: Was it? Was it a lot of
Travis Dockter: connections with people you already knew? Or were you doing some like cold outreach just reaching out to people you didn't know, asking them to sponsor.
Jason Swett: I think both, but definitely, mostly people I already knew.
Travis Dockter: Hmm.
Jason Swett: And in fact, maybe entirely people I already knew. I don't remember now, because it was a bit ago that I was going through
Jason Swett: all that.
Jason Swett: Let's see, there was evil Martians cedar code.
Jason Swett: Cisco Meraki sponsored, which is actually where I where I work now. Incidentally,
Jason Swett: And I feel bad if I'm forgetting anybody, but I think those were the 3.
Travis Dockter: Yeah. Okay.
Travis Dockter: And you mentioned earlier that you you don't do a Cfp or you didn't do Cfp, you just kind of chose your speakers. Did you have any kind of
Travis Dockter: I don't know. Plan, for when you were reaching out to people did you want to like.
Travis Dockter: or did you just kind of reach out to people that you liked, and ask them to to do whatever talk.
Jason Swett: Yeah, I just reached out to people who I thought would make sense. You know, some people have kind of a draw
Jason Swett: like, for example.
Jason Swett: I think I tried to get Chris Oliver to speak for at least 2 years, maybe even all 3 times. On the 3rd time I finally got him, and he came and spoke.
Jason Swett: but I picked him largely because I thought he would have a draw. You know he's he's very much a known entity in the ruby community.
Travis Dockter: Yeah.
Jason Swett: So I kind of did it like that.
Jason Swett: yeah. And that's that's how it went. I really had no interest in ever doing a Cfp, because that just sounds like a lot of work.
Travis Dockter: Did you? Did you
Travis Dockter: give speakers any guidance on what their talk should be like? Or you just said you have 30 min.
Travis Dockter: whatever you want.
Jason Swett: If they asked for guidance, I I would give that to them for sure. Most of the people were pretty experienced conference speakers, so they didn't really need it. They only ask questions like, How long do you want my talk to be? And stuff like that? Right?
Jason Swett: I have, I think probably every year I've had at least 1 1st time speaker
Jason Swett: and sometimes they've asked for some some guidance. Like, hey? I'm thinking of speaking about this? Does that sound good, whatever and so I I
Jason Swett: give them some feedback on that, and just in general, like how
Jason Swett: how long their talk should be like, I tell people that shorter is better.
Jason Swett: Like. Don't feel like you have to fill 45 min or something like that like.
Jason Swett: if you go and speak for 20 min like
Jason Swett: no one has ever been sad, that a talk was like too short, you know.
Travis Dockter: Yeah.
Jason Swett: Something I heard once about public speaking is, people are just waiting for you to be done.
Travis Dockter: And.
Jason Swett: And it's it's kind of a sad truth.
Jason Swett: but yeah, I gave advice to those newer speakers, but again, a lot of them were already quite experienced.
Travis Dockter: Gotcha did you? Do? Did you like
Travis Dockter: pay for speakers? Travel, or give them a honorarium, or anything like that?
Jason Swett: Yeah, we did what we could for for speakers, I think all 3 years. What we did was we just gave them an honorarium.
Jason Swett: and I have never looked up the definition of honorarium. But I think it's kind of like
Jason Swett: this is some money that we're giving you. We know that it's not nearly as much as we should be giving you. But here's something as like a token of our appreciation that can at least help cover your travel a little bit.
Travis Dockter: Yeah.
Jason Swett: And I base the amount on
Jason Swett: what I had been paid at conferences that I've spoken at in past years, which is usually $0. But some conferences I've I've gone to, and they pay like a $500 honorarium or something like that. So I based that on that.
Travis Dockter: Gotcha
Travis Dockter: Let's see, I have some other questions here.
Travis Dockter: So you have mentioned that you are done with, since
Travis Dockter: you might do other ruby events in the future. Can you give us any idea of like what you're thinking about, and how
Travis Dockter: you're thinking about doing things differently from Sin City ruby, or maybe just conferences in general.
Jason Swett: Yeah, there's 2 main reasons. I'm not inclined to do more sin city ruby events.
Jason Swett: one is that sin city ruby happens in Las Vegas, and I live in Michigan, and that's a long ways away.
Jason Swett: And the other is in Las Vegas. It's hard to find a venue that is affordable
Jason Swett: and like checks all the boxes we need to check and stuff like that.
Jason Swett: And
Jason Swett: the 3rd Sin City ruby was just a big financial risk for us, and, like I mentioned, we we lost a lot of money. So I don't want to do that again.
Jason Swett: But what I would.
Jason Swett: What I would entertain is the idea of doing a lower risk event.
Jason Swett: Something where you know to Andy Kroll's point. If only 50 people show up, that's fine, it'll still be profitable, whatever. I don't want to pay a
Jason Swett: $26,000, food and beverage minimum for a two-day event like I had to for Sin City ruby 2025. That was nuts.
Travis Dockter: Yeah.
Jason Swett: So that kind of thing.
Jason Swett: And if I were to have it like in Michigan.
Jason Swett: like driving distance from my house, that would be a lot different and and a lot better in a lot of ways, because, for example, I could like, just go drive over and scope out the venue.
Travis Dockter: No.
Jason Swett: Without having to like
Jason Swett: pay to go to Las Vegas like Fly there and do this whole thing just to check out the venue. You know. We never did that, because that wasn't a realistic that would just like eat away at the
Jason Swett: that would raise the expenses so much.
Travis Dockter: Right.
Jason Swett: So I don't wanna have to do anything like that. I'd rather do something closer. I don't have anything specific in the works.
Jason Swett: frankly, for the last
Jason Swett: few months I've been kind of burnt out, and so I'm not ready to think about anything like that.
Travis Dockter: Yeah.
Jason Swett: I'm trying to shed things and lighten my workload and not try to take on new things. But when I'm ready to think about that kind of stuff. I think it'll probably be in Michigan if it happens at all.
Travis Dockter: So I'm actually in the the venue process right now.
Travis Dockter: What was it like working with
Travis Dockter: the venues for for Sin city ruby. I know you had the tropicana the 1st 2 years is. And I know Vegas is probably gonna be different than a lot of places because they're
Travis Dockter: they do this right? It's the conferences are are a big thing there. So I'm sure it's a little bit different working with them. But what was like the process for getting a venue. There.
Jason Swett: It was positively awful. All of the hotel people are the absolute worst. You would think that this being their main job, they would be like good at it. But no, they're terrible at it like unbelievably and we actually one year we looked into doing a conference instead of Las Vegas. We looked into doing it in Puerto Rico.
Jason Swett: And our experience
Jason Swett: in both places was similar. Like, 1st of all, good luck, even getting a response from the hotel. Yeah, it's like, hey? We want to give you tens of thousands of dollars. Do you want to talk about that?
Jason Swett: No, they're they're not all interested in that conversation. And then, if you do get a response, it might be a really long time later.
Jason Swett: and they might like just totally miss really important stuff, or ask like inane questions.
Jason Swett: Ask you the same questions you already answered to them and and like pass you around to different people and stuff like that. And it's just an enormous hassle.
Jason Swett: I heard on a podcast. Once, this guy, Joe Paula, she said, a lot of businesses don't have a sales department. They have a sales prevention department.
Jason Swett: and that's what it felt like I was dealing with. I was dealing with the Sales Prevention Department.
Travis Dockter: Yeah.
Jason Swett: And then once I got into the process, okay, so you usually fill out because he asked about the process. I usually you usually fill out a form. They ask you like, how many people you're expecting, what dates you're thinking, and all that kind of stuff
Jason Swett: they'll contact you, and you know.
Jason Swett: give you an email that's worded in such a way that it doesn't make any sense. And you have to respond and ask, what do you mean and stuff like that. But anyway, a conversation starts
Jason Swett: and and they're going to want some kind of deposit or something like that.
Jason Swett: So you do that get the scheduling taken care of?
Jason Swett: Maybe there's a little bit of like negotiation around budget and stuff like that quite often.
Jason Swett: In fact, I found this universally to be the case in Las Vegas. They require you to have a room block in connection with your event, because they want that, like guaranteed revenue from you. Yeah.
Jason Swett: So in order to do this one.
Jason Swett: we had to have you know, we were expecting, like we told them, a hundred people. But like we don't know, we just have to guess. You know.
Jason Swett: we said a hundred people. So they made us do a room block for a hundred people, and we had to fill that to at least 80%. And if we didn't fill it to 80%, then we would be responsible for for any rooms that we didn't fill.
Jason Swett: So that's a big part of where the risk comes from.
Jason Swett: And then and you know this hotel. I don't remember how much a night, but like multiply a couple 100 bucks a night times, 2 nights times 80 rooms.
Jason Swett: That's a pretty big number, you know, and that's the number that we were on the hook for.
Jason Swett: and then on top of that. In this case the like $26,000, food and beverage, minimum, or whatever it was because again they want that guaranteed revenue.
Jason Swett: I think we spent like
Jason Swett: I don't remember. But it was. It was some. It was in the thousands
Jason Swett: we spent thousands of dollars on bottled water.
Jason Swett: Yeah, yeah,
Jason Swett: And you know, water. Quite a lot of the time is free.
Jason Swett: Yeah.
Jason Swett: just like in the world, you know. You can go to a drinking fountain and just drink some water. Nobody charges you. In this case. We paid thousands of dollars for water.
Jason Swett: so that was cool.
Jason Swett: So I don't really recommend working with hotels, because they're just the absolute worst
Jason Swett: and they're like, not nice, not friendly.
Jason Swett: It's just awful so screw them. I'm never going to work with them again.
Travis Dockter: Yeah, I've yeah. I've had similar experience so far, where it's just it's
Travis Dockter: I also naively just thought this would be an easy part of the process, because I am going to give them thousands of dollars, and I thought they would, they would be selling me. But instead, I'm like chasing them, trying to to give them money.
Travis Dockter: Which yeah is confusing.
Travis Dockter: But yeah, okay.
Travis Dockter: How did you? You mentioned your your wife was a co-organizer. How did you guys split responsibilities?
Jason Swett: For 2025. She took care of almost all the hotel stuff.
Travis Dockter: Hmm.
Jason Swett: So she did a lot of, you know, very painful work coordinating with these hotels. She handled all the
Jason Swett: financial stuff and all that.
Jason Swett: Basically, I was responsible for the sales and marketing of it. And she was responsible for everything else. She made the website everything else.
Travis Dockter: Nice. What what did you do for for marketing? And did that change from year to year?
Jason Swett: Yeah, so kind of everything that I do is marketing
Jason Swett: whether I intended it to be marketing for the conference at the time that I did it or not. You know, like the podcast that I've been doing for the last, however, many years, 250 plus episodes worth
Jason Swett: all that is marketing that benefited the conference. I didn't intend for it to be exactly that at the time I did it, except right before I did it. You know, when I when I knew that I was going to do it, but that helped all the writing that I've done that helped again, choosing speakers that had a draw that was intentional for marketing purposes.
Jason Swett: And then, on top of that, I would just like manually tell people
Jason Swett: like I do a lot of just like networking calls like, I email people and say, like, Hey, it's been a while since we've talked. Want to have a call to catch up, or whatever.
Travis Dockter: Yeah.
Jason Swett: I do that because that has
Jason Swett: it has a lot of business benefits. And it's just like I enjoy talking to people and having relationships and stuff like that.
Travis Dockter: Yeah.
Jason Swett: And so I did that before the conference. And I'm like, Hey, just so, you know, I'm putting on this conference, and a lot of people didn't know about it.
Jason Swett: and some people I told them about it, and then they bought a ticket.
Travis Dockter: So that was.
Jason Swett: That definitely worked more than 0 times. I don't remember how many people bought tickets because of that. Not a lot of people, but at least some.
Travis Dockter: Yeah.
Jason Swett: And you know, I talked about it. I talked about the conference on my podcast and on social media and
Jason Swett: sent emails to my email list and
Jason Swett: sent letters in the mail to my snail mail programming newsletter recipients. Yeah, basically, any way that I could tell people I was, I was using all the channels that I already had.
Travis Dockter: Yeah, yeah. So you you have a.
Travis Dockter: you're probably the 1st organizer that I've talked to who has like a a real following online. That you could kind of use to to help market this?
Travis Dockter: yeah, that definitely definitely helps. But I love that.
Travis Dockter: Just, you know, telling people that you're you're putting on a conference. That's probably something that
Travis Dockter: you know you wouldn't think of as a marketing tool. But it does work, and especially, you know, if you're just putting on a a conference with
Travis Dockter: a hundred people?
Travis Dockter: you know every every ticket counts, and if you tell 5 people and they buy tickets, as that was well worth the well worth the time.
Jason Swett: Yeah.
Travis Dockter: I love that.
Jason Swett: Yeah. And and you know, I was talking mainly about marketing on the sales side. There wasn't a lot to that, because it's not like I was negotiating prices or anything like that, although sometimes I did, you know, sometimes people were like, Hey, I can't really afford 500 bucks, because that's how many, how much the tickets were. I'm like, all right, like, you don't have a job right now I get that like, what what could you afford, and maybe I'd give them the ticket for something less.
Jason Swett: And that's still fine, because, like that helps with the hotel room, block obligation and stuff like that.
Travis Dockter: Yeah.
Jason Swett: And I had people ask for student discounts and stuff like that, and my policy was just like
Jason Swett: whatever like I'll I'll take some amount of money.
Jason Swett: anything whatever, just to get people there, because it was almost more helpful to have people there than to have the revenue, because every like missing seat cost a lot of money.
Travis Dockter: Right.
Jason Swett: Yeah. And so just any way, I could get people there.
Travis Dockter: Yeah. So you you said lost money the last year, just because of, you know, agreements with the hotel that were exorbitant 1st year?
Travis Dockter: also, just because it, you know, small.
Travis Dockter: did you break even, or or make a little bit of money? How did that go the second year.
Jason Swett: 1st year lost about 2,000 bucks.
Jason Swett: Yeah, I think it was like
Jason Swett: the costs were around 10,000. The revenue was around 10,000, but they were a little bit off in such a way that I lost about 2,000 bucks. I don't remember the exact numbers, but it was.
Travis Dockter: Awesome.
Jason Swett: Roughly in that range.
Travis Dockter: And then how was the how was the second year.
Jason Swett: The second one was bigger. I think it was like 60 or so people who came to that one.
Travis Dockter: Nice.
Jason Swett: And the revenue and expenses were more.
Jason Swett: I don't remember. Maybe it was like $30,000 in and out
Jason Swett: and then we ended up making a few 1,000 bucks on the second year Gotcha.
Jason Swett: And the 3rd year the 3rd year was the worst.
Jason Swett: Well, actually, okay. So like 80 people or so ended up coming. So it was the best in that sense.
Jason Swett: right?
Jason Swett: Financially, it was the worst, because we couldn't do it at the Tropicana anymore. We did it at the Mgm. Grand, and there
Jason Swett: they were much more expensive.
Jason Swett: and they were stricter on what we had to have like. For example, at Tropicana we had no food and beverage minimum, but at Mgm. Grand we had that very large food and beverage minimum.
Travis Dockter: Yeah.
Jason Swett: So I don't know the exact number, but when we when we settled up with the
Jason Swett: with the Mgm. Grand after the conference, so we paid them some amount up front.
Jason Swett: And then, because we had like
Jason Swett: people missing from the room block, and we had to spend money on food and beverage and stuff like that. We had to like settle up after that, and they gave us a final additional bill, and that additional bill was about 20,000 bucks.
Jason Swett: That doesn't mean we lost 20,000 bucks.
Jason Swett: but it was. It was in that neighborhood. It was like somewhere between 10 and 20,000 bucks is how much we lost.
Travis Dockter: Yeah. Was that
Travis Dockter: Was that why you knew it was going to be more expensive? Was that why you decided to have sponsors the 3rd year, or would you have had sponsors the 3rd year, regardless.
Travis Dockter: One of the things I I like about your conference is you keep it very simple like, you know, there's you choose the speakers you don't have like catering, you know, like you, you keep it very simple, and that's
Travis Dockter: very
Travis Dockter: I guess, inspiring. Or it's just like, Oh, maybe I maybe I can do a conference, because, I've been to Jason's conference. And it's amazing. And I know multiple people who have said it was their favorite conference, and it kind of shows you you don't need to have, you know, T-shirts and lunch and all this stuff to put on a good conference that people really enjoy
Travis Dockter: and maybe maybe I could do it without a huge financial risk. Or, you know, without like having a full time job of of doing a conference. But did that? Did that.
Travis Dockter: you know, keeping it simple was not having sponsors those previous years. Did that add a lot of work? And and did you just do it because you knew the the expenses were going to be more that year?
Jason Swett: I actually don't remember. But I think so. I think I did that because I knew the expenses were going to be higher.
Jason Swett: Yeah,
Jason Swett: yeah. And I don't think I would do sponsors again. Because it did add more work, and
Jason Swett: it not like work as in like a whole bunch of time, but just like it took up headspace, you know.
Travis Dockter: Right.
Jason Swett: And it took up a lot more headspace than than
Jason Swett: the time it took, and it just felt kind of.
Jason Swett: I wouldn't say it wasn't worth it. But
Jason Swett: well, maybe I would say it wasn't worth it, because I don't really want to do it again.
Jason Swett: and, to be honest, I don't feel like I serve the sponsors all that. Well.
Travis Dockter: Hmm.
Jason Swett: Like. I didn't have like banners with the sponsor logos and stuff like that, and I think some of the sponsors were expecting that.
Jason Swett: And so I felt bad about that, and I know that that kind of stuff
Jason Swett: is not a strength of mine. And with all this stuff like I want to play to my strengths and not try to
Jason Swett: not try to do these things, that I'm not good at.
Travis Dockter: And then.
Jason Swett: That's a big part of the reason why I chose to do it, to do everything in such a simple way. Because I know that I'm not.
Jason Swett: I don't like administrative detail and stuff like that. And so I'm not going to try to take on a bunch of that stuff.
Jason Swett: So I think if I do an event again, I would go back to making it even simpler, and and just do no sponsors.
Travis Dockter: Gotcha. Yeah, that's a that's a an interesting
Travis Dockter: approach, because it's almost like
Travis Dockter: did to have sponsors. And it's
Travis Dockter: almost required because of the expenses of putting on a conference. So it's interesting to think about like, what a
Travis Dockter: okay, what can I do to to make this simpler? And could I do it without sponsors?
Travis Dockter: yeah, i i i want to think about that. I I'll probably end up trying to get sponsors.
Travis Dockter: For my event. But it is interesting to have the option to, to not do that.
Jason Swett: If I may ask, what what stage are you at in the planning of your conference?
Travis Dockter: I am working on on getting a venue right now. I haven't reached out to any sponsors. I haven't reached out to any speakers so very early on. I'm planning to have it in
Travis Dockter: so about a year from now. So I'm giving myself
Travis Dockter: a lot of time to to plan it. And I'm glad, because
Travis Dockter: every obviously everything always takes longer than you think it's going to. And already, like, I'm like, Okay, the 1st step in a conference. I'm gonna do this step by step. 1st step is to get a venue. I'm like, Oh, that'll take a week, 2 weeks, Max, and that was a month ago that I started. So yeah, it's
Travis Dockter: It's I'm glad I gave myself a year. But I want to nail down the venue, and the date 1st
Travis Dockter: step is going to be sponsors and
Travis Dockter: trying to figure out like, okay, this is how much the venue is.
Travis Dockter: I want to set my ticket prices lower as low as possible, so that you know, more people maybe can have the option of attending so that's gonna depend on how much sponsorship I can get. And I am in the position of not having a following online at all pretty much. I don't have social media. I have a linkedin
Travis Dockter: that's pretty much it. Right? So
Travis Dockter: thing to say, Okay, what? If only 20 people show up to this? And they're all my coworkers, you know. So
Travis Dockter: yeah, the.
Travis Dockter: I want to look for sponsors because I don't think I can depend on on ticket sales to any degree but I am gonna be doing a lot more marketing because I don't have that that following and I want to be really creative with that. And try to get this out to to a lot of people. But yeah, I'm in the very, very beginning stages. And
Travis Dockter: I have kind of have a picture of what you know is is coming next, but
Travis Dockter: very early stages.
Jason Swett: And and remind me, I think you told me, and maybe you even said, but again, the connection's been a little choppy. Are you having it in Albuquerque or somewhere else.
Travis Dockter: Yes, I'm gonna have it in Albuquerque.
Jason Swett: Okay?
Jason Swett: Okay, yeah. And for venues have you looked at like hotels? Non-hotels? What have you looked at
Jason Swett: right now? I'm talking with one hotel and one non hotel.
Travis Dockter: Weirdly, the hotel has actually been more responsive than the non hotel. I really like both of them, particularly because of the area that they're in is very walkable. There's a lot of like dining options. And I've heard from, you know, you and multiple other organizers to not do catering
Travis Dockter: if you can avoid it, and that area that they are in would be really easy. Because there's ton of dining options within a you know, 5 min walk?
Travis Dockter: so that's why I really like that area. And it's a nice area. So I,
Travis Dockter: hoping to get one of those one of those venues.
Travis Dockter: so yeah. And I'm hoping that
Travis Dockter: Las Vegas is a lot more of a draw.
Travis Dockter: but I I think you know, I've talked to a couple people, and they're like, Oh, yeah, like, I've driven through Albuquerque, or I've been once, and I really liked it. I think people do have an interest to come here. We'll see if it's
Travis Dockter: strong enough. That that, it'll get people get people out here. But yeah, I I think that
Travis Dockter: it's worth. It's worth coming out here. And I'm hoping to put on a conference also. That will that will make it worth it, because there's like 2 parts to every conference, right? It's the conference itself. But it's also the location people
Travis Dockter: would like to make a you know, a trip out of out of most conferences, so that you get the conference. But you also get to like, see a new city, or you get to visit you know some friends, or whatever it is, part of it for me with Sin City Ruby was. I had family out there, so it's great for me because I went to the conference.
Travis Dockter: I would go visit my aunt and uncle for 2 days, you know. Stay the weekend with them.
Travis Dockter: so yeah, we'll we'll see if with if Albuquerque is a draw. But I I
Travis Dockter: especially my 1st conference. I didn't want to organize it in a place far away.
Travis Dockter: you know, just to try to keep that as simple as possible, and and not add a neat
Travis Dockter: complications there that that would make it harder than it needs to be on my 1st 1st go around.
Jason Swett: Yeah, that'll be interesting to see a hunch that I have had about Sin City Ruby. Because, you know, you said that I have like a following online and stuff, which is true. But I really struggled to sell tickets for Sin City ruby. And it's not because people don't like the conference, because, like.
Travis Dockter: You said.
Jason Swett: A lot of people really are enthusiastic about Sin City ruby. They they love it. Yeah, but the West is just really sparsely populated, you know, other than the coast. The west is very sparse.
Travis Dockter: Right.
Jason Swett: And so I wondered like, is it because there's not much local draw like
Jason Swett: there's not a big Nevada ruby community, you know.
Travis Dockter: Right.
Jason Swett: And I imagine there's not a huge New Mexico ruby community.
Travis Dockter: Not huge. But there are a couple companies in Albuquerque.
Travis Dockter: that. Yeah, that I'm I'm gonna reach out to. And and you know. See if they will. Sponsor. See if they will.
Jason Swett: Hmm.
Travis Dockter: And some people. And there's also a
Travis Dockter: there's like a a boot camp, too, at a at a community college here. That I want to reach out to. So I'm hoping I can. I can get a a good number of people locally to come.
Travis Dockter: But yeah, we'll see.
Jason Swett: Yeah. And I do think people would find it an interesting place to visit. I think there's something to the idea of like visiting a place that you might not have visited otherwise like when when Adrian Marin had his conference in Romania, which is still going to happen this year, too.
Jason Swett: You know I never would have gone to Romania for any reason, otherwise
Jason Swett: nothing against Romania. But it just wasn't high on the list, you know.
Travis Dockter: Yeah. Super. Far away.
Jason Swett: Yeah, but I'm really glad I went.
Jason Swett: because, you know, precisely because I never would have gone there otherwise. It's like Albuquerque.
Jason Swett: you know you might. People might have a reason to go to like Chicago or San Francisco, or whatever, but not always Albuquerque, but they might be interested to go there, precisely because it's not somewhere that like work would take them to for some other reason.
Travis Dockter: Yeah, yeah, that's the hope we'll see.
Jason Swett: Yeah.
Travis Dockter: Do you have any favorite conferences or favorite conference experiences as an attendee.
Jason Swett: I really really liked friendly. Rb.
Travis Dockter: Hmm.
Jason Swett: That's probably my favorite one, both because of
Jason Swett: the the organizers are great people.
Jason Swett: and the location Bucharest Romania is great, and I took my family, and we took a trip up into the mountains in Romania and stuff like that. That was really cool.
Jason Swett: I think that's my favorite one. It doesn't happen anymore. But southeast ruby was really cool.
Jason Swett: Small conference that took place in Nashville. That was Jason Charnes's conference.
Travis Dockter: Yep. I just talked to him.
Jason Swett: Yeah, I really like those small ones.
Travis Dockter: Yeah, is it?
Travis Dockter: yeah. What? What do you feel like? The the differences are between like a rails Comp or a rails world where there's thousands of people
Travis Dockter: does the the smaller conferences like, what do you? What do you like about each of those.
Jason Swett: With the big conferences. By the way, I really like rails. World. I've only been there once. I went to the one in Toronto, but I really liked that. I thought it was
Jason Swett: really well done.
Jason Swett: At the big conferences like at rails world. I was just like flitting around from person to person, and I never got to spend a lot of time with any one person, because it was like everybody I've ever met. Is there.
Travis Dockter: Yeah.
Jason Swett: And so I don't want to like neglect people.
Jason Swett: But I also like want to be able to spend more than 5 min with people.
Jason Swett: but it wasn't really possible. I was just being like bounced around like a pinball at the conference.
Jason Swett: So I just kept running into people I knew
Jason Swett: And so that's like.
Jason Swett: it's not exactly a good or bad thing. It's just very different. But what I like about small conferences is you can spend a lot of time
Jason Swett: with people. And ironically, you can meet more people at a small conference than at a big conference, because you're just like in more contact with the same people you're like with the same group the entire time. And so you almost can't avoid meeting almost all the other people there. That's what I like about that.
Travis Dockter: Yeah, love that
Travis Dockter: Were there any experiences
Travis Dockter: specifically that you would like to see like.
Travis Dockter: was there anything about rails? World you said you love rails world? Is there anything about rails world that you think
Travis Dockter: we could replicate in smaller conferences? Or is it unique to that conference?
Jason Swett: I don't think it's unique to that conference. I really like
Jason Swett: Amanda Perino's mindset toward it. She's the organizer of rails world and the Executive Director of the Rails Foundation.
Jason Swett: She places a high importance on the venue, on the physical space that people are in
Jason Swett: and I think it makes a really big difference.
Jason Swett: And after that one in Toronto.
Jason Swett: Dhh went on the remote ruby. Podcast. I believe it was. And he talked about how it really makes a big difference, being in a nice venue, that one in Toronto. It was like a
Jason Swett: kind of indoor outdoor space.
Jason Swett: The the weather just happened to be perfect. It was like
Jason Swett: room temperature outside pretty much so you like kind of couldn't tell even if you were like inside or outside. It's like I'm inside, but we're breathing the fresh air of the outdoors, and you know,
Jason Swett: And there were like a bunch of trees inside. And so it was very green and verdant inside, and it was just really nice. It was like a pleasant, relaxing atmosphere. It wasn't some soulless, windowless basement or something like that.
Travis Dockter: -
Jason Swett: Which you know, most conferences are like that, and it's not the worst thing in the world, but it's just so cool to be in a cool space.
Travis Dockter: Yeah.
Jason Swett: So that was like that.
Jason Swett: My recollection is that southeast ruby in Nashville
Jason Swett: was in like a pretty cool hotel in a cool spot that added a lot to it. Friendly Rb. Had a similar thing going. They had a cool venue. And being in Bucharest, was
Jason Swett: it really added to it so I think the physical feel of the venue makes a big difference.
Travis Dockter: Nice. Yeah, yeah, I haven't been to rail's world. And
Travis Dockter: yeah, didn't get a ticket this year, either. But I hope to to make it one day. Because I
Travis Dockter: I've heard, yeah, just a lot of good stuff. About that conference
Jason Swett: And it's it's 1 of the few conferences that just sell out like that.
Travis Dockter: Which is is interesting.
Travis Dockter: I don't know. Why do you? Do you think that's because that, it's you know, it's dhh? And the Rails foundation behind it? Or why does that sell out so quickly? Why are people so so eager to to go to that conference that it sells out within half an hour.
Jason Swett: Yeah, I think it's dhh.
Travis Dockter: Yeah.
Jason Swett: I think it's because, like that is the Flagship Rails Conference.
Travis Dockter: Yeah, it's a major draw.
Jason Swett: And you know again, Amanda does a really nice job of organizing the conference, but I don't know if people knew that that was going to happen. You know, people no one had ever attended one the 1st year that it happened, and I think it's still sold out like instantly. So I think it's just the draw of Dhh, and the fact that it's the Flagship Rails Conference.
Travis Dockter: Yep, yeah.
Travis Dockter: okay. I'm I'm gonna put Amanda Perino on my list. So I think she was already on there. But I I would love to talk to her about conference organizing. But are there any other people that you think I should talk to about conference organizing.
Jason Swett: I think you probably have
Jason Swett: all these people on your list already. But I mentioned Adrian. There's Jeremy Smith.
Jason Swett: Jason Charns charge who you mentioned. You talked to.
Jason Swett: There's Spike. I'm not sure how to say his last name.
Travis Dockter: Yep. Yep.
Jason Swett: Organizer of Rocky Mountain, Ruby.
Travis Dockter: Yep. Yeah. Talk with him.
Jason Swett: Yeah, yeah. So I think you probably already have most of the same people on your list.
Travis Dockter: Cool. Yeah. Last last bit. Any any advice or words of wisdom or inspiration for any other conference organizers out there that you have.
Jason Swett: Don't do it!
Travis Dockter: No.
Jason Swett: No definitely do it, but I think I think a really good piece of advice is again the Andy Kroll advice. He wasn't even intending it as advice, but like
Jason Swett: design it so that it'll be design it. So it'll work out okay, no matter how big or small it ends up being. I think that's a really smart way to approach it.
Travis Dockter: Yeah, I love that awesome alrighty, Jason. Well, I appreciate your time. And I
Travis Dockter: again, just I loved Sin City Ruby. It was part of the the inspiration for me to do this, because, you know, Cincy, Ruby, and Railsconf were the main conferences that I went to both of them ending this year. Kind of got me thinking like, Okay, what am I going to do next year? And then I was like, well, what if
Travis Dockter: I I try my own conference. So
Travis Dockter: thank you again for your time and for Sin City Group itself. And are you going to rails? Conf.
Jason Swett: No plans to as of now.
Travis Dockter: Okay. Alright!
Jason Swett: I'm not sure that I'm not going, but sadly, it looks like probably not.
Travis Dockter: Okay. Alright. Well, I'm sure I'll I'll see you around other places, and I'll talk to you later.
Jason Swett: Alright! Thanks a lot.
Travis Dockter: Alrighty, thanks, Jason.