[yapc] YAPC::NA SOLD OUT!!!

[JT Smith]

I saw his comment on that, and we do have a solution for that to some extent; more on that in a few weeks. But you can't put the banquet in two rooms. It's not just the talks, it's everything. The entire venue space and all the activities have been planned around 400 people. It's better to limit the numbers you can support and ensure that those that spent all the money to come have a good time, than to invite more than you can reasonably handle ensuring that many will be pissed about money spent and wasted.  The cost of the ticket to YAPC after all is by far the smallest cost for most YAPC attendees. 

If you really don't want to come to YAPC because you think we're doing a bad job, I'm sorry to hear that. I'm certainly willing to take you off the speaking schedule if you decide you don't want to come because you don't think it's going to be fun. I certainly wouldn't want you to feel obligated to come.

I'm sure lots of people are pissed off because we're changing things. We got rid of the auction in favor of the raffle. We've sold out of everything. We're doing a game night. We killed some of the traditional "big" talks in favor of having more 20 minute talks. We're promoting the hell out of the conference to the point that some have called us spammers. Some have raised concerns that we have "too many" sponsors. That's ok. If we go down in a blaze of glory because everything we've done fails, so be it. Change is tough. I don't think the changes are we've made are so sweeping that it will be a bad conference, but I am willing to risk it because I think its time for YAPC to evolve.  Perl has evolved dramatically in the past few years, but YAPC has largely remained the same. I'm happy to take full responsibility for it. =)

JT Smith
Director, YAPC::NA 2012
http://www.yapcna.org

PS 

Another way you can support Perl is by adding a link to the bottom of your web site, or on your credits / thank you page to http://www.perl.org
	

On Apr 30, 2012, at 11:47 AM, Matt S Trout wrote:

> On Mon, Apr 30, 2012 at 11:38:59AM -0500, JT Smith wrote:
>> I'm not sure if you're just trying to pick a fight or not. I'm certainly not trying to say that you ran an inferior conference. All I'm saying is that we have sold out the space that we have to sell out.
> 
> And you said:
> 
> "Because the university won't allow standing room. They're very strict on fire
> codes and such. I've sold 20 more tickets than I was supposed to sell just to
> account for the fact that some people won't actually be in the room, so if
> everybody shows up we will actually already have standing room only seats."
> 
> However, as Rob said:
> 
> "For the last session of lightning talks at YAPC Columbus, we didn't
> have a room able to hold everyone. So, we simulcast to a second room
> with monitors."
> 
> He isn't trying to pick a fight. He's trying to tell you that Columbus found
> a workaround for this problem that didn't require standing room. And I think
> perhaps implying that you could've asked him and didn't, which is perhaps a
> little passive aggressive but should also be taken as an offer to ask him as
> many questions as you'd like in order to figure out a way to deal with this
> that doesn't involve preventing people coming to YAPC.
> 
> Because that's really not in the spirit of the perl *community* conference
> that I was hoping to attend this year, and while it's your choice how you
> run it, I'm hearing an increasing level of murmuring in the areas of the
> community that I keep an eye on suggesting that more and more, this
> conference doesn't seem to be shaping up to be the conference other people
> were hoping to attend either.
> 
> I do very much take your point about not judging in advance, but I'd be
> remiss not to express these worries now, especially given if I don't then
> I can hardly complain later if they don't get addressed :)
> 
> -- 
> Matt S Trout - Shadowcat Systems - Perl consulting with a commit bit and a clue
> 
> http://shadowcat.co.uk/blog/matt-s-trout/   http://twitter.com/shadowcat_mst/
> 
> Email me now on mst (at) shadowcat.co.uk and let's chat about how our Catalyst
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