Not a lot to update about right now. I haven't been great about promoting the CFP but we did manage to get a few more submissions. I think I need to just commit to posting once or twice a week on all socials (LinkedIn, X, Bluesky) to keep people reminded that the CFP exists. I of course underestimated how busy I would be in November & December and I don't feel like I have the mental bandwidth to devote to creating a complex marketing campaign. I also imagine a lot of people feel the same way about getting a CFP submission together right now. I will be leaving the CFP open until January 11th at midnight. That is a Sunday and gives people a little time after the holidays wind down to get something in.

I signed a sponsor agreement with Appsignal! They reached out to me and were super easy to work with. That brings my official sponsor count to three with a fourth in the works. If it all works out I will land in the $10-12k range for total sponsorships which is exactly where I want to be. That isn't enough to cover the entire cost of the conference but enough to give me a solid place to start to cover the rest with ticket sales. And the benefit of only having four or five sponsors is that I don't have to juggle a bunch of relationships and requirements and that keeps the mental overhead of the conference lower.