Andy's Website: https://andycroll.com/

Transcript

Travis Dockter: Okay. So Andy Kroll. Welcome to my kind of casual off the cuff. Very unprofessional unofficial Travis Dockter: conference chats that I've been having.

Andy Croll: Unprofessional is in my wheelhouse. So let's.

Travis Dockter: Very much, very much that so I've for context just been Travis Dockter: reaching out to conference organizers. And selfishly, I've been trying to gather information to create my own conference. But also I'm recording them and and putting them all on a site, so that hopefully, other people in the future that want to start their own conference can can see these because Travis Dockter: something that I keep running into actually is that every time I reach out to somebody, they say, oh, I did the exact same thing. I reached out to a bunch of conference organizers, and they gave me all these good tips and everything, and that's great, and I think that's a good thing. I think people still should reach out and and have that connection. Travis Dockter: But I think it would also be good to record some of these, so that you know, we can, we can get some of that information out there for maybe people that don't have a chance to connect

Travis Dockter: So that's what this is. You

Travis Dockter: have a lot of conference organizing experience. I was just trolling the Internet. And you've organized bright and Ruby. You've helped organize rails. Conf, red dot ruby. Ltv, comp.

Travis Dockter: let me know if I missed any.

Andy Croll: Rubicon for many. I also help with that one.

Travis Dockter: Okay, yes, I did see that one. I missed that one here. So can you give us kind of

Travis Dockter: maybe your origin story like, how did you get into this? And why are you still doing it so much.

Andy Croll: I mean, that's a bloody good question.

Andy Croll: Why am I still doing it?

Travis Dockter: Yes.

Andy Croll: So I am an idiot with too many work adjacent side hobbies.

Andy Croll: So originally so I was in. I lived in Singapore for 6 years between 2,007, 2,012,

Andy Croll: and I was part of the ruby meet up there, and we were sat around at Christmas

Andy Croll: one year, and I was like that was in the Peak era of the 1st wave of like small ruby conferences happening in the Us. All the regional stuff when it 1st kicked off. Sort of when railsconf was this behemoth, where, like sort of rails, 2 ish era.

Andy Croll: And I said we should totally have a conference here, like Ruby's in Japan, and Japan is close, I said, knowing full well that Japan was like an 8 h flight. But it was closer than the Us. Right? So I was thinking, Yeah, we should do this here. And someone said, Yeah, you should do that, Andy. And I was like, Okay, I will. So I asked. There was a guy there who was running the Pivotal Labs office at the time, Carl, and he said, Well, I'll sponsor it

Andy Croll: to get you off the ground, give you some cash flow. And then I emailed Matt.

Andy Croll: and then Matt's emailed me back and said, Yeah, I'd love to come and speak, and then I was like, Oh, no! Now I have to put on a conference.

Andy Croll: and at the time Singapore was sort of going through a sort of startup focus. The government was sort of pumping loads of money into startups. Singapore is not a big country, but it's very travelable, too travelable, too. So we actually got a bunch of folks from Australia

Andy Croll: came over because we were their nearest ruby conference. I know a few folks who ended up running like the Australian Ruby Conference, like they came to those early red dot ruby

Andy Croll: to the Iran.

Andy Croll: And then when I got back to the Uk, I didn't know anyone because I've been in Singapore for 6 years doing rails.

Andy Croll: So I needed to

Andy Croll: for me build a network. Or, do you know, I need to find a job, basically. And I thought, with 18 month old twins, the quickest way to do that was to host a conference in the Uk. And there hadn't been a Uk ruby Conference for a number of years at that point. So I did that, and the 1st one was 140 people. The one that I hosted

Andy Croll: 8 days ago was 450 attendees.

Travis Dockter: Wow!

Andy Croll: So it's fairly punchy these days in terms of size. I've got a really great venue in Brighton. It's a charity that runs the Brighton festival out of our main venue. They've got 3 different size rooms. So I started in the smallest room, and I went to the second size room. And now I'm in the big room.

Andy Croll: And I'm like the least scary thing that they deal with like they deal with like gigs for 2,000 people

Andy Croll: dancing, drinking. What have you? And I'm just like 400 nerds during the day, who talking

Andy Croll: like coffee and like pretty much that straightforward. So I'm able to keep doing it, because I don't change it. That much.

Andy Croll: I also feel like there's a little bit of

Andy Croll: there are others. There was a ruby conference in Scotland last year. There has been other ruby conferences in the Uk. There was one in Bath for a couple of years. I spoke at that one

Andy Croll: Obviously, like the European Ruby Conference scene is like, really busy.

Andy Croll: And I just keep doing because people keep coming right. Mostly people are lovely, like, you know, there's in the feedback. There's always like one or 2 people who are

Andy Croll: who missed the point, or

Andy Croll: they think they're unique because they give me this feedback, and I'm like you inverted commas. You were here last year, and you didn't get anything out of it, either. But you didn't come back. And so now you're here again. So.

Andy Croll: broadly speaking, it's like 95% great. And then the 2 weeks before a dreadful

Andy Croll: personally, like stress-wise.

Andy Croll: But I can sort of manage the rest of it throughout the year, and I've been doing it so long now that

Andy Croll: I can sort of do it, it's ambiently a little bit.

Andy Croll: so that 2 weeks before is like, yeah, stuff starts arriving at my house, and I end up with like rooms full of lanyards and socks and beach towels. And what have you? But like generally.

Andy Croll: I keep doing it because people are nice and people like it. And

Andy Croll: I make a little bit of money. I bought myself a switch 2 this year. That was nice.

Travis Dockter: I see

Andy Croll: Like it's. It's also like there's a bit of ego in it. I enjoy the conference day. I like emceeing it. That's fun. I like

Andy Croll: helping people with their talks in the run-up to it. I like.

Andy Croll: I like the 1st beer after it's all done.

Andy Croll: Yeah, I like the excuse of having. I like a conference on my doorstep that is, to exactly to my taste.

Andy Croll: So there's a certain amount of everything like part of the rails. Comp. Thing I did last year.

Andy Croll: Huge personal mistake, great personal success.

Andy Croll: very valuable, felt good about it. But we just like sucked the energy out of my life for 6 months

Andy Croll: not quite

Andy Croll: 6 months. Didn't have 6 months to help with it. But, like that was a big thing it was.

Andy Croll: It was trying to refocus like my version of Railsconf

Andy Croll: Alongside Ufouc, who who was on the board of Ruby Central, and stuff so like part of it, was focusing

Andy Croll: the ruby central machine on a different

Andy Croll: angle on the conference. I suppose, after you know, Post Covid.

Andy Croll: yeah. So I don't know why I keep doing it. Honestly, I wish I knew like, because then I could stop. My wife certainly asks, Oh, why are you still doing this? You could say no, nothing would. Nothing would be bad also, you know the accusatory. You really love this, don't you? So so it's a real mixture. I like the community side of things like, I'm a weirdly sociable programmer.

Andy Croll: Yeah, most of us are like, you know, we all need to retreat to our caves afterwards, and I'm no different. But like I like to be in a room full of my people.

Andy Croll: and I think the ruby folks really are our people like I often get a speaker in from outside of our community as well. So this year a lady called Amy Hoop, who's a design system specialist, who I saw another conference that I help out at in Brighton, just on the door, and and she was like, they're really friendly.

Andy Croll: I thought my talk. I didn't know if my talk was going to get out well, because it's not totally like Ruby whatever, right? So no like the Ruby Cloud are wide enough and broad enough and broad minded enough to hear things from other people and take what they can from that. So that's always been a fun thing for me is to try and do that little twist as well.

Travis Dockter: Yeah, I've I've kind of started to think of conference organizing as having kids like, you see, parents.

Travis Dockter: And they just they look tired. They look, they look upset. And you're like.

Travis Dockter: Oh, you guys like are having a rough time. They're like, yeah. And I'm like, Oh, so I I shouldn't have kids right? They're like, no, no, it was the best thing we ever did.

Andy Croll: Wouldn't go that far.

Andy Croll: I mean parenting aside, but like I think you do need a certain kind of constitution, particularly if you want to keep going with the conferences. There aren't many people who have done it as long as I have.

Travis Dockter: Yes, yeah.

Travis Dockter: So I'm I'm obviously unusually.

Andy Croll: Suited to it, or it nickels a part of my brain. That means I keep coming back

Andy Croll: part. Maybe part of that is a lack of competition. Maybe I don't know. I wonder if there was another big Uk ruby conference that like fulfilled half the thing that I just go along, and that would also be fine.

Andy Croll: enjoyed the last 2 rails worlds, because particularly the Amsterdam, one, because I could get on a train

Andy Croll: right underneath the underneath the channel and end up in Amsterdam, and then poot around for 4 days.

Travis Dockter: Yeah.

Andy Croll: Puts on an amazing show. And so this is great. I can just go to this. This is to my taste. Lots of reference are here. Yeah.

Andy Croll: Another thing that I personally get out of it is, I've made loads of good friends from.

Andy Croll: Doing. Some people do it just by speaking

Andy Croll: And there's that kind of like ambient, work-related friendship thing like there's there's this concept of like low

Andy Croll: I mean, as you get older, it's more difficult to make friends right. And and it's

Andy Croll: it's not like school where you realize you spend all of your time with the same group of like 5 people.

Andy Croll: You know I spend most of my time with my family, but it's nice to have.

Andy Croll: but they don't understand what I do. My wife doesn't understand my job totally like she sort of does. This sort of doesn't understand why I like it. And so like to have like every 6 months or 3 months, or once a year, like a group of people. And often the same group of people come back like, that's something that I really value.

Andy Croll: So that's probably the reason I do it as well.

Travis Dockter: Yeah.

Travis Dockter: what do you? What's the hardest thing? If you had to pick one thing about organizing conference and maybe focus that on

Travis Dockter: for like a 1st time person like where are 1st time people most likely to trip up

Travis Dockter: or have the most trouble when they're organizing.

Andy Croll: I would say there's 2 things. One is costs getting out of control.

Andy Croll: Everyone spends too much money.

Andy Croll: I'm intrinsically a person who doesn't like to waste money

Andy Croll: like I'll spend money, and I like, you know, I'll spend money on illustrator. I'll spend money on videos, but those things are additional. Once I have covered my costs.

Travis Dockter: Yeah.

Andy Croll: So like you have to at a minimum.

Andy Croll: be under. Be on target with your costs.

Andy Croll: because if you get, if that gets out of hand. Then you're spending all of this life, energy all of this time, all of this time away from your family, your spouse, whoever, and then you lose money

Andy Croll: that sucks so hard.

Andy Croll: and I don't expect to make loads of money like some years. I've done done really well, because, like I've sold more tickets than I was expecting, but generally what I do is I ramp up so as the ticket sales go, or over the years, as the ticket sales have gone up.

Andy Croll: I have invested that money back into the event.

Andy Croll: So, for example, the 1st year, there's no videos because I just didn't have the money for videos, and you know there was no swag.

Andy Croll: and then, as it's got bigger.

Andy Croll: I can offset that, and as it gets bigger there's more sponsors, and I try not to have too many sponsors. I try not to do that thing where there's like a wall of sponsors. I try and have, like 3 or 4 sponsors who are willing to pay a decent amount of money for me to make it worth it for them for them to get a benefit from it.

Andy Croll: but that's entirely like about costs for them. So like if I had 10 sponsors or giving me a like

Andy Croll: a little bit.

Andy Croll: I can't do a good job from them, and they're all competing with each other for people's attention. If I get 3 big sponsors

Andy Croll: each giving me, they're all hiring basically sponsors for conferences are generally hiring, or they're doing a nice thing.

Travis Dockter: The tools, people for smaller conferences really difficult for them to make money.

Andy Croll: So if a tools company like you say, like a honey badger or an app signal, or whoever like, they're doing it to be involved and to get thank yous and to keep their brand name out there. It's like brand advertising, but they're not expecting Roi, whereas people who actually actually sponsor my conference are

Andy Croll: there to recruit, and therefore they pay me a couple 1,000 pounds a few 1,000 pounds.

Andy Croll: and if they make a hire that isn't through a recruiter. They've made that money back.

Andy Croll: Gotcha. So like that. That's purely makes sense for a conference of my size.

Andy Croll: So yeah, that's but but that is how I also keep the costs down. Like I charge

Andy Croll: a reasonable amount for sponsorship, and that also minimizes the amount of time I have to spend with them. If I had 10 I'd have 10 people to contact. And it's just me organizing. So like if I've got 3, and they've done it before. That's great, because I can predictably know what to give them and what they need.

Andy Croll: Yeah, so yeah, cost control is the main thing. And the other thing is extreme events. So like

Andy Croll: someone misbehaving.

Andy Croll: So like, that's stressful.

Andy Croll: When you have to uninvite someone, when you have to make the big call where someone's misbehaved, and you have to tell them off and say, you're not welcome anymore.

Andy Croll: I've had to do that because I've been doing it so long hasn't happened. It doesn't happen much.

Andy Croll: But like there's

Andy Croll: There's a thing that I do at the beginning of all of my conferences that I don't see other people do, which is actually get into what the code of conduct means, and what

Andy Croll: is my expectation for behavior, and for when you should get in touch with me, and it generally has meant that nothing bad has happened since I've been doing that.

Andy Croll: but I don't see many people do it. Most people just sort of brush off the code of conduct thing and say, Oh, code of conduct! And I'm like, this is what that means. If you go for drinks afterwards. Consider yourself to still be at work right like

Andy Croll: like, don't do stupid stuff that would embarrass you if someone videoed you doing it right like that's just like it's basic human stuff. But like people get a few drinks inside them and get excited and have had a lovely day. And then they do stupid things so, but like dealing with that stuff

Andy Croll: and being, I mean, that is like parenting.

Andy Croll: And so you have to tell people off and like punish them some extent right? So like I have had to do that to a couple of folks who will never be allowed to come to Brian Ruby.

Travis Dockter: Gotcha.

Andy Croll: Again.

Travis Dockter: Are you? So? I counted. You've done bright and ruby now 11 times.

Andy Croll: Hood.

Travis Dockter: Are you

Travis Dockter: still learning things like, did you notice anything this year that you want to like? Improve next year, or anything like that?

Andy Croll: Yeah, I mean that it's always

Andy Croll: in pursuit of making things smoother.

Travis Dockter: And easier, and.

Andy Croll: So the last couple of years I've had help from an event specialist. She comes along the day and runs the front of house.

Andy Croll: which makes a big difference for me. It means I can concentrate on the speakers and the day, and

Andy Croll: she's great

Andy Croll: Children want to play on their playstation, but it's in here.

Travis Dockter: Oh no!

Andy Croll: I so so she's been really helpful.

Andy Croll: even silly things like just finessing how registration happens

Andy Croll: so like this year. One of the feedback from last year was like registration didn't work very well, because everyone had to put the lanyards on their own badges. So I get people to write their own badges. I don't print all the badges out.

Travis Dockter: Yeah.

Andy Croll: Badges.

Andy Croll: and then they fill them in. Put stickers on them right on them. You know. Fun, little creative thing. At the beginning of the day. This year I spent 3 h with a pair of pliers

Andy Croll: and a hole. Punch and I hole punched all 500 badges.

Andy Croll: and then it was described as the smoothest registration that she'd ever worked on. So I'm like cool. That was an improvement that I did this year. I haven't looked at the feedback forms in detail. Yet for this year I thought it went well. People were nice afterwards.

Andy Croll: It's like I.

Andy Croll: It's also I know. I know what Brighton Ruby is.

Andy Croll: so it's important to know what your event is.

Andy Croll: and to know what your own boundaries are

Andy Croll: like. People are like. Oh, it'd be great if it was 2 days, and I'm like I can't do 2 days.

Andy Croll: I don't have the energy to do a 2 day version. And the one day version works.

Andy Croll: you know, had you considered doing training around it, I'm like. Yes, I had. I tried to make it work a couple of years, and it didn't. People weren't interested in the day before training course for 10 people just didn't. What wasn't the uptake for it?

Andy Croll: yeah. So it's also like the event ends up shaping itself like you just have to listen. And like it's just nudges every year like slightly bigger, slightly bigger. It's been about.

Andy Croll: It's been about this size for 3 years. Now.

Andy Croll: Post Covid was smaller because I booked a smaller venue, because when I booked the venue it was still people not leaving their houses. I didn't know if people were going to come out, so I didn't want to book a

Andy Croll: 500 person venue. So I booked 120 person venue and sold it out. So I was like cool. So the next year was much bigger, because people felt like they'd missed out. And then it's kind of settled down to a little bit below that the last couple of years.

Travis Dockter: Yeah.

Andy Croll: But yeah, it's yeah. I think that's I don't know if I've answered your question.

Travis Dockter: Yeah, yeah, no, definitely.

Travis Dockter: So going back to like your early conference experience. Actually, I don't know how how much you can relate to this because you the 1st year that you did

Travis Dockter: the Singapore is that red dot ruby.

Andy Croll: Yeah. Red. Dot. Yeah.

Travis Dockter: You already had a a sponsor, and you already had Matt's coming so like that. That kind of just set you on this trajectory. But.

Andy Croll: Yeah, I did. I mean, I started again when I was back in the Uk, so like I had.

Travis Dockter: Yeah, that's true.

Andy Croll: It was so.

Andy Croll: 2011, and 2012 were the red dots.

Travis Dockter: Okay, thanks. So if as a as somebody

Travis Dockter: let's just take me, for example, who has.

Andy Croll: Simple.

Travis Dockter: I have no online presence. I have no blog following or anything. I've gone to a couple of conferences, but I don't also have a really wide network.

Travis Dockter: how did you convince people to come to that 1st conference when you're basically an unknown

Travis Dockter: is there any tips that you have? There.

Andy Croll: I mean the only like part of the reason that, like, if I am known at all, it's because I've been running Brian Ruby for 10 years.

Travis Dockter: Right.

Andy Croll: It's not. I was known, and therefore I could run Brighton Ruby

Andy Croll: like it's anything good that's happened has happened downstream of it.

Travis Dockter: Gotcha.

Andy Croll: And that's because it suits me as well like. It suits me that I can like, I was saying before, like it fits my personality, for whatever hell reason, whatever we're

Andy Croll: I would say, all you have to do is if you can keep your costs low enough and your ticket price low enough. You make the decision easy for people who want to go.

Andy Croll: So for me, red Dot was.

Andy Croll: There was a bunch of ruby companies in Singapore mats was coming.

Andy Croll: One ruby employer was sponsoring.

Andy Croll: I posted in the Europe the Sydney ruby

Andy Croll: chat wherever it was at the time

Andy Croll: I posted on various things like forums, social media, as was back then.

Andy Croll: And I just knew I could make a 50 person version work.

Travis Dockter: Yeah.

Andy Croll: And I mean this is true to this day is like, I am not playing in the rails. Comp. Apart from what I did rails. Comp, I'm not playing in the rails. Conf rails. World level of tickets like my ticket price is. Still, if you buy a ticket 6 months in advance. It's 130 pounds

Andy Croll: which is wildly less than any competent ruby developers day rate. So if you are.

Andy Croll: the decision you are making is, do I want to go to this and forego a day's income? Not can I afford the ticket.

Travis Dockter: Yeah.

Andy Croll: So like that's still in my head is like

Andy Croll: I mean, the ticket price is still, you know, I've kept it relatively flat for those early birds.

Andy Croll: I think it's

Andy Croll: yeah, it's not. It's not gone that far forward, even with inflation, because I'm still able to make them the numbers work.

Andy Croll: So yeah, it's about keeping that cost down. Make, you know. Are you easy to travel to, because that makes a difference

Andy Croll: like Brighton is Brighton pulls from London dead easy like. It's a half hour train journey from London. No.

Andy Croll: hold on.

Andy Croll: It's like an hour's train journey from London, so people can do it in a day. It gets more tricky when people have to fly in and stay over. People do stay over in Brighton because Brighton's a tourist town so, and it's very pleasant here, and I have it in the summer when the weather is nice, so like there's all sorts of reasons that people stick around, but then that only really started to happen later on, and lots of people still go back to London, so they'll come down on the morning they'll commute down.

Andy Croll: go to the day, stay for a drink, and then get on the last train home.

Travis Dockter: Do you know, like what percentage of people are

Travis Dockter: local, at least in like within an hour travel time versus.

Andy Croll: If you count London, probably half the people.

Travis Dockter: Okay. Gotcha.

Andy Croll: London is a massive city, right? So if you're talking like local, local, so like

Andy Croll: might come to Brighton for something else.

Andy Croll: probably only less than 10%.

Andy Croll: I'm drawing mostly from London, and then there's a bunch of European folks who come and enjoy it and come every year, and you know we also. Gallick is only half an hour from here as well. So like, if people are flying in from Europe, you could in theory do it in a day. You wouldn't do it in a day, but you could.

Andy Croll: I had one speaker who tried to do it in a day, and it did not work.

Andy Croll: So yeah, like, I have that as well, like Gatwick's, the European airport typically as well. So people do come in for a couple of nights.

Andy Croll: and it's nice enough where I live that it's a city you might want to visit, anyway, like we have lots of folks.

Andy Croll: It's the summer right now it's it's a town that has lots of

Andy Croll: stagn Hindus, or bachelor and bachelorette parties come to Brighton quite a bit. We also have lots of like European

Andy Croll: student groups come over and hang out, and Brian for a couple of days. You see them walking around town with their matching backpacks, and someone at the front with a little sign. So like it's it's that kind of town. So it's quite a pleasant place to be, and it's got really good food and stuff so like it's a place that you would come anyway. The fact there's a ruby conference is kind of a benefit

Andy Croll: someone pointed out this week that I should probably get on board with the local Council and Chamber of Commerce to see if there's any way that they can. You know I'm bringing

Andy Croll: as as a benefit to the city. I'm bringing 500 people to it once.

Travis Dockter: Right, yeah.

Andy Croll: Done for a decade, so maybe the city can help. I just have never bothered asking.

Andy Croll: There's all sorts of things that I could be doing that. I'm not.

Travis Dockter: Yeah, yeah, cool.

Andy Croll: Like. I only really thought of that when I helped out at Detroit. Rubyconf, Railsconf.

Andy Croll: and, like Detroit, were amazing. The city of Detroit were like super helpful.

Travis Dockter: Oh, nice. Yeah.

Andy Croll: Like those. But that's for a bigger scale of conference than I'm doing.

Travis Dockter: Right.

Andy Croll: Actually not in terms of numbers, not that much bigger.

Travis Dockter: That's true.

Travis Dockter: So talking about sponsors again, same kind of question. But for someone just starting out it.

Travis Dockter: the value proposition is difficult to make to sponsors. Obviously, there's the strategy of

Travis Dockter: you know, keep costs as low as possible, and and don't rely on sponsors. Which is, I think a good strategy in the 1st the 1st year, and one that I will probably lean on. But do you have any insight into how to maybe talk to sponsors, or how to approach sponsors. When you're just doing this for the 1st time.

Andy Croll: It's really difficult, right? Because I have a bunch of ruby employers in the Uk. Who are local, who are in London who are hiring.

Travis Dockter: From the south.

Andy Croll: East of England.

Travis Dockter: Yeah.

Andy Croll: And we're single time zone as well in the Uk.

Andy Croll: So

Andy Croll: even if they're remote, they're hiring from the Uk remotely. So there's a bunch of, like. Most of the companies are hiring remotely within the Uk, so they're not expecting people to move.

Andy Croll: I think

Andy Croll: it's also I'm very clear about what works like when people get in touch. And they're like, Oh, I've built this thing

Andy Croll: for rubyists, I'm like, honestly, it's really difficult to show Roi, for, like

Travis Dockter: Devtools.

Travis Dockter: Yeah.

Andy Croll: Other than like. There are some great small indie devtools, companies

Andy Croll: who throw money at conferences, not huge amounts, but, like, you know, cash flow kind of money. So that's great. So like for me, the most important thing is to find a

Andy Croll: it's like it's the cost thing like the sponsors. Let me do stuff

Andy Croll: so the things that you think you might need to run a conference. You don't need.

Travis Dockter: Okay.

Andy Croll: You don't need video.

Andy Croll: That's a huge cost. You don't need to feed people.

Andy Croll: They can feed themselves. And, in fact, that I think that's better.

Andy Croll: It's much better like, particularly if you're having some. It gives a conference more character if they're if you're of the place that you're in.

Andy Croll: Yeah, so yeah, I think that's an important thing like Brian's got such good food like it'd be a waste for me to give people disappointing sandwiches

Andy Croll: and keep them in a hot venue. Right? That would be rubbish. I'm just like, no, no go eat like.

Travis Dockter: Yeah.

Andy Croll: Go meet people you wouldn't have otherwise met.

Andy Croll: Yeah, so yeah, like, I don't, you know, do coffee and pastries? Because I'm not an animal, but like

Andy Croll: actual dinners costing like, and that was that was a big reveal to me. Helping out with rails. Comp. Was like how much budget is put towards those enormous

Andy Croll: cavernous rooms. And actually the food in Detroit was amazing.

Andy Croll: I went to like the Detroit.

Andy Croll: as you might imagine, Detroit, like lots of car conferences.

Travis Dockter: Yep.

Andy Croll: So they've got just this enormous conference center. And we have, like one end of it.

Andy Croll: And they they produce so much food for those things that like again, I think rails Comp was very scary for them.

Andy Croll: So like we went into there was like a room off the like industrial kitchen that was like a little restaurant like one round table, and we like got served the food when we did the site visit. It's amazing, but equally like the food budget for rails. Comp. Is like

Andy Croll: 5 years of Brighton ruby. Just the food like

Andy Croll: that's just scary and terrifying to me like. So that. And also I can't in all

Andy Croll: good conscience put my own financial and my family's financial

Andy Croll: safety at risk by doing something of that size particularly. This is a side gig for me like this. You know, I have a day job, or like I'm a

Andy Croll: I run a tech team so like that's this is not my day job. This is my stupid hobby.

Travis Dockter: Yeah. Yeah. So with managing costs.

Travis Dockter: I was able to just secure a venue which was very reasonably priced. So I think I can. I can cover the venue with, you know, minimal ticket sales like with like, if I only sold 30 tickets, 25 tickets I could cover the venue. So I I feel good about that. But

Travis Dockter: I would.

Travis Dockter: Obviously everybody wants to.

Travis Dockter: 1st thing, take care of your speakers, and it would be awesome to have an honorarium.

Travis Dockter: I guess. You know. And and also like video, you want to do video, because it's it's nice for them to have this, this record of the the talk that they gave

Andy Croll: After the fashion is.

Travis Dockter: Now? What was that?

Andy Croll: After a fashion.

Travis Dockter: Right, right.

Andy Croll: I'm like, I think there's too much focus. I think there's way too much focus on. I'll watch the videos later, because honestly, the people who watch videos on Youtube, speaker videos rounds to 0.

Andy Croll: So like, it's a lot of effort and cost

Andy Croll: something that some people have shown no income

Andy Croll: to you. They have not invested in your event. Like, I'm weirdly selfish about this.

Andy Croll: With good reason, like, I'm not just trying to be an idiot.

Andy Croll: but like the ruby events thing which Marco has, Marco Roth and someone other.

Andy Croll: Some of the chapters put together, which is great and it's brilliant resource, like they were like, can we put the Brian ruby videos? And I was like, no

Andy Croll: like, not because I don't think it's a good thing, and I'm happy for you to link to them. But like I host the videos myself because I don't want them on Youtube.

Andy Croll: And I also don't.

Andy Croll: I considered them to be somewhat of a marketing benefit like.

Andy Croll: there's that thing about being on Youtube, where it's like, you're just the same as every other video like, who knows which conferences those came from. Also, like, if you want to give that talk again. I delay my conference videos coming out like, I don't strive to get the videos out the week afterwards. I'm like, take your time. I'll put them out Christmas because I use them to

Andy Croll: as an excuse to email people for next year.

Travis Dockter: Okay, yeah, that.

Andy Croll: So lots of people don't like they're just like, Oh, I must get the videos out. But I was like that. Enthusiasm is great, but like.

Andy Croll: mostly those videos are for people who didn't come.

Andy Croll: Some people will want to go. Oh, yeah, I wanted to show my teammates this video. I'm like. Well, they can come next year if they want to see the great talks. It's also for a speaker like some conferences don't like to have the same talks as elsewhere.

Travis Dockter: Right, right.

Andy Croll: Like as a, and also like.

Andy Croll: I would rather people have not watched my talk when I walk into a room and give it for the 1st time, like I like to. I've I've done talks that have got surprises in them.

Travis Dockter: Correct.

Andy Croll: Much more fun if no one in the room knows it's coming.

Travis Dockter: Right, yeah.

Andy Croll: So as a speaker, I don't like having my videos out there very much.

Travis Dockter: Interesting. Okay, this is a a contrary.

Andy Croll: Most people don't say this, and I might be wrong. But like this is how I run like if the next time I give a talk. I'm going to ask for the video, not to be up until like a year later. So I have a chance to give it, because when I give a talk I put like 80 HA hundred hours into that talk. I don't want to give it once.

Travis Dockter: Yeah.

Andy Croll: I want to give it multiple times and have the because the second time you give it, it's better

Andy Croll: the 3rd time you give it better still, like the 4th time. Maybe you're getting like, okay, I've done this talk before, and like, you know, you, maybe you're.

Andy Croll: I'm improving things like it, and not all of us are mats right? Who has? Who has one talk that he changes like a 3rd of every time he gives it right, because he's constantly giving the future of ruby talk.

Travis Dockter: Right.

Andy Croll: Because that's what he that's what people want to hear from him

Andy Croll: or David Dhh. Is giving his talk, which is like, here's what's coming in rails, whatever. Right? So it is all the new stuff, and often like it's you can have conference talk, driven development right like they'll get stuff over the line for the rails, release for his rails. Well, his rails. World keynote. There's very few people who

Andy Croll: can give the same talk.

Andy Croll: In multiple places. Yeah, you can maybe once in Europe, once in the Us. Maybe twice.

Andy Croll: I don't know. It depends. But like once you've got there was, there's always a sense of like. If you give a talk at Railsconf, it almost feels like you burned it.

Travis Dockter: Right, yeah.

Andy Croll: I'm not a super fan of that like I invest enough time, and I think I think

Andy Croll: certainly the talks that I give I like to would like to be able to give them again.

Travis Dockter: That makes a lot of sense to me. Do you think, though, that maybe part of this view is because.

Travis Dockter: you are an experienced speaker, and you're an in demand speaker. So you.

Andy Croll: You say end of my no one's invited me for ages.

Travis Dockter: Well, but I mean I mean, maybe you don't speak as much.

Andy Croll: I haven't with railsconf last year. I basically said.

Travis Dockter: Yeah.

Travis Dockter: Can't do that and do.

Andy Croll: Alright cool, but my eyes on that.

Travis Dockter: Do you think?

Travis Dockter: And maybe it's still not practical, but for like a 1st time Speaker, somebody who's never spoken before. They go to a conference. And and this is they they got in through the Cfp. This is the only talk they're going to give this year. Do they want to have it on video so that they can like post it on their linkedin, or like, have it on their resume. Yeah.

Andy Croll: I mean, but but also like.

Andy Croll: why does it have to then be public? Why couldn't that be for them?

Andy Croll: Yeah.

Andy Croll: they could see it. They could watch it back first, st get their feed, you know. Take what they give, get from it and go. Oh, yeah, that bit didn't work, that, you know. So with all my speakers, I I've seen most of the talks in my conference 2 or 3 times by the time they're given.

Andy Croll: either because they've been given somewhere else, or I have helped them put them together.

Andy Croll: And I think this is something that I can bring, because I've been a speaker myself as well. So like a weird another like it's like, I'm really good at slides. I'm really good at keynote. It's no use generally in the sort of tech team. I run, but like I can help someone go. This slide doesn't cover what you said in it. You should say this and move this thing from here, and had you thought about line, you know. So I really help. I try and really help my speakers with that stuff.

Travis Dockter: Yeah.

Andy Croll: And if you're giving it for the 1st time, and you haven't had that assistance from a conference organizer

Andy Croll: sometimes, seeing the talk back is useful. So that's that's a good feedback thing. But that doesn't necessarily mean the fact that you were you're on a website like you'd have to share the video.

Andy Croll: Yeah, you can share the video. 6 months later, hey, the videos are finally out for my thing. I also gave it here. And here.

Travis Dockter: Gotcha, or you can like, have a video that's private you could share with. You could share with a conference organizer saying, I've given this talk before. It's not online. It's here. If you want to see it.

Andy Croll: There's definitely a credibility building thing to being a speaker. But I don't think it's

Andy Croll: I don't think rushing a video out is necessarily always the best way to build credibility as a speaker.

Travis Dockter: Yeah.

Andy Croll: I think the best way to build credit to the speaker is to do it loads and.

Travis Dockter: Right.

Andy Croll: And get better.

Travis Dockter: Those are good. Those are good points. You might be changing my mind I was putting, because I'm kind of like like you said, I'm trying to manage costs and and stack things. So like, okay, I have the venue that I know I can like cover with ticket sales. Maybe if I get a sponsor, then I'll have videos. Maybe if I get another sponsor, then I'll have you know this type of swag or.

Andy Croll: How you'll speak.

Andy Croll: What was that?

Andy Croll: So I I have an honorarium for the speakers. I also pay. I also pay their travel.

Travis Dockter: Yeah, so.

Andy Croll: Most conferences. Don't.

Travis Dockter: Travel, which is plane and hotel.

Andy Croll: Wherever they're coming from they all get hotel.

Travis Dockter: Ban, an honorarium.

Andy Croll: I don't know where I am.

Andy Croll: Yeah, I am unusual in this.

Travis Dockter: Yeah, I like that, though I would love to do that. That. So that like, if I got a sponsor.

Travis Dockter: that 1st sponsor, that's what that would would go.

Andy Croll: Big conferences will give you a free ticket, and often often a hotel depends on the conference, and it depends on when which year the conference was as well like I know folks have had hotel rooms for

Andy Croll: rails conf and for rails world, and sometimes they haven't, and sometimes they have. If they're a keynote like there's been various things. The bigger conference, the bigger conferences, is like a world I don't totally understand financially the smaller ones.

Andy Croll: I think you should be able to like that. That is a factor in my Cfp. I'm not picking talks

Andy Croll: like I. Also, I also want to support my local speakers right? So like.

Travis Dockter: Right.

Andy Croll: It's normal, like I generally don't get like an entire army of people who I have to fly in.

Travis Dockter: Right, there'll be 3 or 4, and sometimes.

Andy Croll: Their companies will cover that. So, like this year, I invited a bunch of Americans and Europeans and their companies covered their flights and hotels, anyway.

Andy Croll: and that was a good. That was a lucky year, which meant I got to do other stuff that I wouldn't have been able to do otherwise.

Andy Croll: Yeah, so like, they're effective. They become sponsors like they're not at the level of the sponsors, because a flight from anywhere is only like a thousand $2,000 pounds whatever, depending on how far they're coming from. So like. So, for example, Tim Riley from Hanami, like a couple years ago, I flew him over.

Andy Croll: and he wasn't sponsored by anyone, so I just paid for his flight.

Andy Croll: That was a long answer.

Andy Croll: Got it, but, like he was worth it. He did a great, really great talk.

Andy Croll: so yeah, like, there's, I think you have, like, like, these people are putting the out like, I. Still I still feel guilty about the honorarium that I give, because I don't feel like it's enough

Andy Croll: because people put in hours to these things because they're professionally important and like, there is absolutely a side benefit to being a recognized speaker or having given a talk and

Andy Croll: the authority that that gives you in a career situation

Andy Croll: I'm not expecting you to give. You're still the talent for me, like without the speakers there is no show.

Travis Dockter: Yep.

Andy Croll: So I,

Andy Croll: my honorarium has moved around a bit over the depending on how well I do. I then feed that back into an honorarium

Andy Croll: so like. I wish more conferences planned to pay their speakers. It shouldn't cost you any money to come and speak anywhere.

Travis Dockter: And sometimes it does, and that sucks.

Andy Croll: It should be an entirely positive experience.

Andy Croll: and I think when you then have to pay a flight, or like I mean, it hasn't happen the ruby community much, but I've heard of conferences that, like almost you, you also, you can come, speak, but you also have to buy a ticket. I'm like no.

Travis Dockter: Yeah.

Andy Croll: Absolutely no way.

Andy Croll: Yeah, I'm not. Let me give you 80 h of my life away from my family, away from my day job, away from, you know, to then pay to come to your conference that I wouldn't have otherwise attended.

Andy Croll: Yes, that's a no go for me.

Travis Dockter: Do you do anything else? For your speakers to make it special? Besides, like the financial part.

Andy Croll: A lovely speaker. Dinner before

Andy Croll: generally. I you know I try and get them to come in a bit earlier, particularly if they're coming from further away.

Andy Croll: You know. Come and work from Brighton. Do you want to come and work from my my office? That's fine.

Andy Croll: Yeah, like

Andy Croll: whatever I can do to make it. I think the investment. The other thing that I do, which is slightly different, is the investment in their talks.

Travis Dockter: Yeah, I was gonna ask about that cause. That's really

Travis Dockter: that's something I couldn't offer, because I I don't speak. But I think that's really awesome that you like go over the talks with them, especially for 1st time speakers. That is like

Travis Dockter: an incredible other benefit of of speaking at at Brighton.

Andy Croll: Yeah, I like, I like to think it's worth it. You know, I did a bit. I mean the the

Andy Croll: the so the Ruby Central Conferences have a team of people who volunteer their time to do similar sort of stuff like there's there's Speaker mentors at those ruby central big ruby.

Travis Dockter: Okay. Nice.

Andy Croll: This

Andy Croll: and honestly like I lean on my friends when I do a talk so like I lean on Nadia nayo, or Emily samp, or

Andy Croll: or you know, or Eileen just to get

Andy Croll: their feedback on the talk like. And that's just professionally like, is this whole, you know, I can sort of tell what's not working. Sometimes you just need an outside voice, though I'm not. My talks are not perfect. I give them 4 or 5 times before I give them

Andy Croll: and so and sometimes my feedback is, you know, there's a joke here.

Andy Croll: You should do it because there's really nothing better than standing on a stage and getting a laugh. There really really isn't very little, and particularly if you can get one early because it just it makes you feel better when you're on the stage, gives you confidence. And so that's why you know

Andy Croll: Nadia, famously, there's this great story. She showed showed me one of her talks, and my feedback at the end was like great talk. There's a joke here, there's a joke here, there's a joke, he goes, Andy, I know how you would give this talk.

Andy Croll: But I'm giving the talk. I'm like, yeah, yeah, good point.

Andy Croll: So like, yeah, it's, you know, there's there's

Andy Croll: that sort of thing is helpful like in structuring, like I was like, you can lose this whole bit like you lost me here.

Andy Croll: So yeah, like, it's it's but that again. That's like years of doing this stuff like that's.

Travis Dockter: Yeah.

Andy Croll: That's like 15 years of doing conferences. And although it does round to 0 on Youtube, I am the person watching your conference talks

Andy Croll: for everybody out there. I'm the person who's watching.

Travis Dockter: So for speakers, do you? Do you do just Cfp, or do you like reach out personally to some people? And you're like, I want you to speak at this year.

Andy Croll: A real mix.

Andy Croll: Okay? So some year, the last couple of years I've I've sort of been dealing with bit with a Covid backlog.

Travis Dockter: Okay. Yeah.

Andy Croll: Like there were a bunch of people I invited

Andy Croll: for Pre for Covid era talks that didn't happen. Some of them did the virtual conference. I did that I didn't enjoy, because it's virtual and and then some of the people are people that I've asked and have postponed. So this year. I had asked like 2 or 3 folks in previous years, and said, Get back to me if you want to do it this year, and they got back to me and said, Yeah, I'd love to speak this year. I was like cool, cool. So then that fills up half. And also it's 1 day. Right? I'm 1 day one track. So I basically got somewhere between 6 and 12 talks, depending on length.

Andy Croll: So this year I did 7,

Andy Croll: 7, or 8, 8, half hour talks, and then 3, 10 min talks.

Andy Croll: Okay, so I did. I did. I basically did lightning. Cfp, so if you want to do a lightning talk.

Travis Dockter: Okay, yeah.

Travis Dockter: So that's I've done a full Cfp before as well.

Andy Croll: But this year I've done a full like, yeah, full length talk. Cfp.

Travis Dockter: Okay. Yeah.

Andy Croll: And obviously, when, as part of railsconf, that was all. Cfp.

Travis Dockter: Have you ever done any like workshops or that type of stuff.

Andy Croll: Tried, for whatever reason doesn't seem to work.

Andy Croll: I've tried to sell like people who have recognized training courses and who were speaking or wanted to come over and speak, but could only come and speak if we could make their trip worth it with a workshop for 8 people or 10 people, or 12 people, or 20 people, or for whatever reason.

Andy Croll: doesn't fly in the local market. I don't know if that's a Uk thing or a European thing or

Andy Croll: a time of community thing. I've just never been able to make it work.

Travis Dockter: Gotcha.

Andy Croll: The you know the ticket price, for

Andy Croll: I just never made training work. I've just never been able to do it.

Travis Dockter: Yeah.

Andy Croll: Maybe the ruby community is just full of folks who don't want to pay for that training, like, I imagine, if we were in more enterprisey world.

Andy Croll: you know some sort of Java certification thing or.

Travis Dockter: Right, right.

Andy Croll: Like a job, maybe a Javascript, just because the audience is wildly bigger, like an order of magnitude, bigger because it's Javascript, and it's everywhere

Andy Croll: but the ruby folks. I've never managed to make that work.

Andy Croll: Don't know why. Wish I could. I think there's huge benefit to in-person trainings.

Travis Dockter: Right

Andy Croll: I'm not. I don't. I don't actually see that much in the I mean, that's 1 of the things Jason sweat when he, his Sin City ruby. Originally that was meant to be a workshop.

Travis Dockter: Right like.

Andy Croll: You book the venue, and then

Andy Croll: couldn't sell tickets to a workshop, but could sell 50 tickets to a conference. So it's like, fine sod it. I'll do that.

Travis Dockter: Yeah.

Travis Dockter: what's this is perhaps my my own ignorance. Here. What's the difference between a keynote and a regular talk.

Andy Croll: There you go!

Andy Croll: No

Andy Croll: I don't for me not much.

Travis Dockter: Okay.

Andy Croll: Sometimes, if keynotes tend to be people who are invited, you might give them slightly longer, because you can be confident that a 45 min talk from someone who's giving a keynote isn't going to be dull.

Travis Dockter: Right. So one of the key things that I.

Andy Croll: Impress on my speakers is I give them half an hour because I'm like.

Travis Dockter: You can do a talk in half an hour. You think you can't, but you'll just ramble. Otherwise, if you've only got half an hour you can get in. Say the thing you're going to say, and then get out again.

Andy Croll: Yeah, and then have a conversation in the hallway.

Andy Croll: There's nothing worse than an hour's slot of somebody rambling on and on and on.

Travis Dockter: Yeah.

Andy Croll: People's lives come on everyone honestly. People would rather have half an hour, and then they'd rather have a coffee and chat to their new ruby friends, but generally a keynote can be longer

Andy Croll: keynotes. Sometimes some people feel like keynotes can be like less

Andy Croll: tutorially, like some talks skew a bit tutorially like my talks tend not to

Andy Croll: My talks tend to be a bit keynote idea

Andy Croll: storytelling. Maybe I don't know they it's a they can be a different flavor. And sometimes, you know, like David's keynotes are very much. Here's a feature. Here's a feature.

Travis Dockter: Right.

Andy Croll: Aaron Patterson's keynotes are. Here's half an hour of hilarious stand up, and then.

Travis Dockter: Yeah.

Andy Croll: Minutes of the hardest ruby you'll ever have in your head.

Travis Dockter: Yeah.

Andy Croll: Everyone's got their own style like mine are.

Travis Dockter: Great combo.

Andy Croll: Here's yeah. Here's my! Whenever I've so I given I gave a keynote at Ruby Conf. I've given one at Yuruko, and those were just storytelling talks related to technology. Not necessarily ruby. Even some of them are ruby.

Andy Croll: Some of them are more like careery, I suppose.

Andy Croll: Yeah, like.

Andy Croll: And there's space for all of those things.

Travis Dockter: Yeah.

Andy Croll: Do you.

Travis Dockter: Do you? Do you ever kind of theme or ask for themes, or guide people towards certain types of talks at Brighton?

Andy Croll: I haven't done it, Brighton. We did at rails Comp. Last year, because we were really trying to focus on. I felt like rails Comp. Had gotten away from being about rails. It had got like there were more of those kind of

Andy Croll: less practical talks, I guess.

Andy Croll: Percentage. And partly we wanted to guide back hard onto technical talks and workshops. And we like we went heavy on workshops.

Andy Croll: For that year for Brighton. I tend not to, but it tends to emerge.

Andy Croll: It tends to be.

Andy Croll: I'll invite a couple of folks.

Andy Croll: and then through the Cfp. I will go. Oh, that would go with that, or a Cfp. Talk will come and I go. Well, that's happening. You know. I'm I'm always listening to the community like, I'm always listening. I'm reading

Andy Croll: blog posts, newsletters, social media, all of this stuff. I'm always on listening, and so often I'll be like, I'll know I want to talk on something in that area, and so when it comes in, I'll be like cool.

Travis Dockter: Gotcha.

Andy Croll: And sometimes I will pair up talks I tend the after lunch. Slot tends not to be a hard technical talk.

Travis Dockter: Yeah.

Andy Croll: Spoilers like you put that one near the beginning of the day when everyone's full of caffeine awake. You don't give it to them after they've had a nice long lunch in Brighton in the sun. Then often I'll put something fun or silly at the end of the day.

Andy Croll: so my final talk will often be more

Andy Croll: fun interactive. I'll tend to put those in the afternoon.

Andy Croll: But other than that I tend not to, I don't have great themes. But often, if you look at

Andy Croll: previous Brighton rubies, you'll see

Andy Croll: either themes through the day, or I'll put like 2 data retalks together, or I'll put 2,

Andy Croll: or I'll contrast them like, you know, if you can let the speakers know beforehand what's coming around them. They can. Sometimes I have had speakers like

Andy Croll: who were worried. They were going to tread on each other's topics, just run their talks past each other so that they could either feed into each other's talk or

Andy Croll: so I've had that one that's really worked.

Travis Dockter: Yeah. Do you think workshops work better at the the like? Rails confit type level of conference.

Andy Croll: I have seen that work, but I think certainly the rails, comfy, ruby, centrally, conferences.

Andy Croll: those tended to be and tend to be still people's training budgets from bigger teams.

Andy Croll: whereas the indie conferences tend to be individuals paying right

Andy Croll: my impression. So the workshops tend to be like, and also back in the day at the Ruby Central stuff. They didn't use to tape the workshops.

Andy Croll: so people would go to the workshops because those were the things that weren't going to end up on Youtube.

Travis Dockter: Gotcha? Yeah.

Andy Croll: No, that was a thing at rails. Comps, and that's the thing we changed for last year's rails. Comp.

Andy Croll: Is this, like the workshops, will also be recorded.

Travis Dockter: Gotcha? Yeah.

Andy Croll: Like if you want to go to a workshop. But also you want to take advantage of a thing that you can only do here, which was like the hack day.

Andy Croll: We wanted to encourage people to go to the thing, that if they, if that was a good excuse for them to go catch up with the workshop another time.

Andy Croll: But

Andy Croll: yeah, go go to the hack day because you can't do that. You can't do the people stuff.

Andy Croll: So like, that's the other. They're just a very. The big ones are just a different thing.

Travis Dockter: Yeah, okay, we're we're already coming up on time. And I have so many questions.

Andy Croll: Got, you know. It's Friday afternoon. Here. I can. I can keep going.

Travis Dockter: Okay, awesome. Okay. So can you think of

Travis Dockter: something small that you did that you didn't think of at the time. You just kind of threw it in there that maybe had an outsized impact where people afterwards were coming up to you and said, I'm so glad you did that thing. And you're like, Wow, I almost didn't, because I didn't even

Travis Dockter: think it would matter to anybody.

Andy Croll: Lots of things. I think that's my secret.

Andy Croll: Nice.

Andy Croll: That's so.

Andy Croll: I write a card for every speaker.

Travis Dockter: Yeah, love that.

Andy Croll: And I did that for railsconf as well.

Travis Dockter: That's a lot of cards.

Andy Croll: And also, you know, it's

Andy Croll: so. I do that, and make sure that I try and make sure that the back, the speaker things are in their rooms by the time they get there, or I'm sat in hotel reception ready to give it to them. So they have a badge. They have to queue all of those things again. The effort I put through with the speakers before the talks before they talk so like helping them finesse their presentations.

Andy Croll: I think the fact that it's me on stage.

Andy Croll: and it's clearly my thing, and it's a personal thing, and it feels handmade like I never would want to get away from it being a thing that I have my hands in the fact that I hole punch those badges.

Andy Croll: That makes a difference like whether you know I did that or not like that's a that's me! Putting my blood, sweat, and tears into it.

Travis Dockter: Yeah.

Andy Croll: I think

Andy Croll: the thing is that that thing I talked about earlier, which is like going through the code of conduct at the beginning of the day. Invariably every year I've done it. Somebody has sidled up to me at a conference, so part of it's available. It's available on the Brighton ruby site. I've recorded the 1st year I did it, or the second year I did it. Yeah,

Andy Croll: And I put my own personal phone number on the on the board. I don't then post that on the Internet.

Andy Croll: But like I put it out there, this is my literal personal phone number taken over. Now.

Andy Croll: if you need to text me, you can text me and so.

Andy Croll: and I go through what I expect in terms of behavior so like, and I go through the sort of behavior that you might be tempted to excuse. So like

Andy Croll: having a couple of drinks, and being a bit sleazy in a bar is a thing that happens in work environments across all industries and is not unique to tech

Andy Croll: or ruby even. And I say, I expect you not to do that.

Andy Croll: and if someone tells you off for something that you said or say, I don't really think that was cool. That thing you said, then you just suck it up.

Andy Croll: and I say this at the beginning of the conference, and I say, like, I want to hear about these things where people then don't suck it up, or when they do think they can get away with it, because they're just boozy, and they're feeling a bit, you know.

Andy Croll: like an entitled Dude. Generally it's always a guy

Andy Croll: but I do that, and I invariably get somebody come up during the day and go. Thank you so much for that.

Andy Croll: It's not a big thing.

Andy Croll: but it's why I do every year, because, like that makes a difference to the vibe of the whole event, and I don't think people appreciate.

Andy Croll: I think they appreciate the personal care that I take

Andy Croll: in setting up an environment that is friendly and as rubyish as I can make it.

Travis Dockter: Yeah.

Travis Dockter: Do you have any favorite conference

Travis Dockter: experiences or or other conferences that you've been to? Maybe as an attendee or as a speaker.

Andy Croll: I would keynoting Ruby Kampf when I was picked out of the Cfp.

Andy Croll: And then they wanted to turn it into a keynote, and I would say

Andy Croll: I made a bunch of Americans cry, and it was pretty cool.

Andy Croll: That was, that's really fun.

Andy Croll: I would say every time I the first, st the 1st Us. Event after Covid we felt special.

Andy Croll: which was, where was that Portland, Paul, and Rauskopf

Andy Croll: that felt special because it was like emerging and sudden. There were people who I knew had known from conferences, and I was suddenly like, Oh, we're friends because we have missed each other

Andy Croll: so like that was a big thing for me. It's like people who I previously said, Oh, yeah, I know them from conferences and speaking. And la, la! And I was like.

Andy Croll: you see them? Yeah, it was the speaker dinner, and I went up, and I like gave this person a hug, and I went.

Andy Croll: Do we have another hug that was great like.

Andy Croll: this is something like, Wow, I really, we really like each other. Don't we like it's that thing of just like

Andy Croll: over the years you build relationships I didn't fully understand until I didn't have them. So that was a special thing, and honestly like the 1st beer after a conference where people are being nice to you.

Travis Dockter: And you can't even really speak.

Andy Croll: So I'm often in the bar at Brighton, Ruby, like I've packed down my stuff

Andy Croll: I've like. Put the banners down. I'm just having a drink?

Andy Croll: Not many, because at that point I'm totally wrecked. Just.

Travis Dockter: Yeah.

Andy Croll: And the 1st and the 1st beer is just so nice, and I tend to. I used to.

Andy Croll: I did. I did karaoke a few years afterwards, but I found that to be completely. I wreck myself for days just like

Andy Croll: doing that after the conference, and now I just quietly, there's a couple of folks who come every year, and I just

Andy Croll: we go for pizza, and I just I isolate myself away, and just like get their opinions on what the day was like.

Travis Dockter: Yeah.

Andy Croll: Some people love like the big after party, but I'm so done.

Travis Dockter: Yeah.

Andy Croll: With the thing, and it's different at the bigger conferences. I really like them. They're like a celebration, and you can move between the hotel bar, and it's fine and like, even as a speaker where you have the stress of speaking.

Andy Croll: I just I like it. I like all of it. I like people. I like the Rubyists who I know.

Andy Croll: So yeah, like. And it obviously, it lights me up because otherwise I wouldn't keep doing it. I guess that's why I keep doing it.

Andy Croll: But yeah, like all of those, it's

Andy Croll: it's the it's the friends we made along the way, is the answer, as Disney as that sounds.

Travis Dockter: Yeah, yeah, I I agree. I like that. Answer,

Travis Dockter: okay, to to wrap it up. Is there any resources or people that you would recommend to talk to about conference organizing.

Andy Croll: I would try and get someone who's newer than me to it like I can't really remember what the 1st one was like.

Andy Croll: I'm coming at it with 15 years of doing it.

Andy Croll: So I'm probably not the best person to ask how to start a conference.

Andy Croll: and the only way you'll really know if you enjoy it is by doing it.

Andy Croll: because it is all encompassing. The week before is so all encompassing. I would say people to speak to Adrian from friendly.

Travis Dockter: Yeah, I just talked to him yesterday, actually.

Andy Croll: He's great, lovely, lovely man.

Andy Croll: I would say for your sort of thing. Yeah, you want to find the small people like

Andy Croll: you get to speak to Jason. Sweat.

Travis Dockter: Okay.

Andy Croll: Like, because he had a very. His conference was very him

Andy Croll: of in it. From what can establish.

Andy Croll: Yeah, like, I think you want the people who have done it a couple of times

Andy Croll: worked out that. Yeah, they've made a mistake.

Travis Dockter: Yeah.

Andy Croll: And they know.

Andy Croll: Yeah, I've made all of the mistakes.

Travis Dockter: Yeah.

Travis Dockter: The mistakes for them are are fresh.

Andy Croll: Yeah, exactly. Right?

Travis Dockter: Just made him.

Andy Croll: Hopefully. You know, I'm still making mistakes. But hopefully those.

Travis Dockter: Yes.

Andy Croll: Those folks have more of a sense of going backwards the Swiss ruby folks as well. And it's just you right.

Travis Dockter: Yeah.

Andy Croll: Yeah, I mean, yeah, you need to speak to a monomaniac like me or Jason or

Andy Croll: Adrian has helped, I think, a bit.

Andy Croll: But I mean, also, like whoever's done the Yuruko most recently.

Andy Croll: because Yuruko is a weird conference where they tear it.

Andy Croll: That's completely been honest. There's absolutely no way.

Travis Dockter: Yeah.

Andy Croll: No way to do it.

Travis Dockter: A really wild strategy. Yeah, it's interesting.

Andy Croll: That's very much the emailing mats and going damn. Now, I have to do a conference kind of vibe. But like every year.

Travis Dockter: Yeah.

Andy Croll: And also it's 700 people. And Matt's is definitely coming. So yeah, like, those things are big. But like, yeah, I think if you've got a venue that, you know. You can

Andy Croll: make it work with 30 or 40 folks

Andy Croll: you can build from there and like, if you've got any other questions. Give me a shout like, because I can

Andy Croll: help you answer the question that you, you know you already have the answer.

Andy Croll: You just need to talk to someone about it.

Travis Dockter: Yeah, yeah. Awesome. Alrighty. Well, I appreciate your time so much.

Andy Croll: That.

Travis Dockter: The yeah. Are you going to rails? Comp, this year?

Andy Croll: I? Unfortunately, I'm not going to railsconf because it clashes with a family holiday. So I'm.

Travis Dockter: Ask? You.

Andy Croll: I would have been flying. There's like, literally I looked at it because I really wanted to go. There's 1 flight that I could catch from Philly to London, and it would have to come in on time, and then I would have to be up at 5 Am. The next morning to drive to the south of France, so I cannot. I could not in all good conscience do that.

Andy Croll: Yeah, give give more, and all the folks there. If you're going.

Travis Dockter: Yeah, we'll we'll miss you. But thank you so much for your time and your knowledge. And yeah, hopefully, I I know this this video will help

Travis Dockter: a lot of people looking to

Travis Dockter: to do their own conference. So appreciate it. Thank you, Andy.

Andy Croll: No worries.