RailsConf

I have to say that if you are thinking of organizing a conference I think the best thing you could ever do for yourself is attend more conferences. Attending conferences after making the decision to organize your own will make you look at everything with a new perspective. You will look at how the check-in is run, how the food is set out, how the speakers are handled, and a million other things and you will make decisions about how you will do it yourself. Conferences are also good for the conference organizers for the same reason they are good for programmers in general, because of the conversations that you have that would probably be impossible online. Casual conversations will lead to making major decisions about your conference in ways that you wouldn't expect. People will tell you stories about their conference experiences that will affect how you design your own. People will ask you about things you might not have thought of or didn't think were important. The amount of inspiration and energy I got this week (while also completely exhausting myself) were worth their weight in gold.

Highlights

Talked to a couple potential sponsors. Only one seems even remotely interested but I expected sponsorships to be a hard sell for this thing and even a vague "maybe" is exciting.
Talked to a couple potential "keynote-type" speakers (even though I don't even really know what keynote means for my conference yet). One person gave me a soft yes. Again, very exciting to have any sort of response at all.
Told dozens of random people that I am organizing a conference and they were pretty much always supportive and positive. Of course no one was like "let me buy a ticket right now" but at least a few people just know about the existence of the conference now and that feels like good progress.
I put around 70 stickers out on tables with the conference name, dates, and location and people took all of them so that was nice. At least those people know it exists now, even if they just wanted the sticker.
I got 5 new signups on the Blastoff Rails conference site for email updates. This isn't a lot, but way better than nothing. At this stage it's really about just getting in front of peoples faces and making sure they know that the conference exists. There are 11 months left to get them to buy a ticket.

Venue

Contract is signed, dates are set for June 11th and 12th of 2026, and the only thing left is putting down a deposit. It is pretty much official so I might as well spill the beans for you guys. My venue is the Albuquerque Hotel and I got it for two days, with Audio/Visual included, for $2k. From what I have heard from talking to other conference organizers, this is an unheard of deal and takes a huge amount of financial pressure off. Even if the whole thing falls apart and I don't sell a single ticket I won't have to declare bankruptcy. I am pretty much over the moon about this. Now I get to have more fun designing the experience without a giant weight hanging over my head. A lot of other small regional conferences spend a minimum of $10k on venue. Oh and did I mention with this rental, every attendee gets a free ticket to the museum? Did I also mention that there are two hotels and dozens of food options all within ten minutes walking distance? I think I got very, very lucky with venue and it has me really excited that I can put on a conference that everyone can enjoy.

What's Next?

I plan on spending the next couple months figuring out sponsors and speakers. This will probably entail researching a bunch of people and companies and crafting an email to each one to explain why they should participate in this particular conference put on by this particular guy. Right now I am also a little bit torn between doing a CFP or just personally inviting the whole lineup because I keep coming across cool people that I would like to invite. I would like to give a few first-time speakers a shot at this conference. Maybe that doesn't have to mean CFP though. I still have some time to think about this. I don't know if anyone is planning their speaking calendars a year out. I also want to reach out to an accountant to make sure I know how speaker honorariums and ticket sales work so I don't mess that stuff up.

This was a wild week and I feel like the people I met and the conversations I had truly set this conference on a totally different (and better) trajectory than it was on before. I am really excited for the next steps and to tackle the challenges they will bring.