--- In Firebird-general@yahoogroups.com, Dimitry Sibiryakov <sd@...> wrote:

> Could you also show count of visitors on FB Conferences, year-by-year?

in 2007 we had about 120, the years before there were less. For 2008 in have no numbers because i was not involved

>Sure, typical Firebird developers won't attend conference where no
>Firebird-related sessions are held. It is exactly what I'm talking
>about: we must invade wherever possible.

a lot of our typical customers are simply interested in their business tools and these are typically delphi/c++/c# and Firebird. they have no reason to evaluate other database engines and other programming languages, so in their mind about 80 % of typical topics in such a conference is useless for them. A general software conference like froscon can often not handle in depth sessions for specialists, this i why for example postgresql had their own subconference on froscon, 1 room, two days of sessions. If you like to organize a similar event for next froscon, no problem, i will help you whereever i can. For this year my question was too late, organizers reported no more free rooms for a firebird subconference.

> And can you tell a single reason why such events can happen on
> FBCon only? Letting alone the fact that these people so far visited
> FBCon only.

perhaps because there are some more differences between fbcon event and froscon. For example most people at froscon waited about half an hour in the queue for a simple bratwurst and another ten minutes for their first beer for their voucher. In the same time, we had almost finished the first 50L Beer and the cake for helen on the conference in Fulda with much less people. I have been in my life perhaps at 80 or 90 Devloperconferences around the world and also on some with a really large amount of visitors (several US Borcon with thousands, several FDD in Brasil with more than 600, Ekon, Jax, basta, ...).

In all cases the handling was different because non of the conferences were free. Especially the Delphitag in germany and the FDD in Brasil are nice examples for real professional conferences for low prices.

It is a big difference to sit among people visiting the conference who think about a nice restaurant for the evening and a nice location for the drinks compared to a typical student situation, when you can not afford an expensive hotel, expensive meals and drinks.

In fact, you will not be able to mix all the interests and expectations on the same level. This is why we made the private ticket for saturday more affordable.

The price is much lower than we have to calculate for an individual ticket, but we try it and the voucher is only a part of sponsoring, so there will be no lower price and no option without a voucher. There might be offers from other sponsors also, but without sponsoring, the price is not possible.

If you do not need it, simply ignore it. The price includes coffee, cold drinks, a lunchbag, costs for the room and the chair you want to sit on, etc. And also access to the speakers sessions coming from different countries to this event to extend your knowledge.

The 69/62 Euro is the early bird rate, details on later prices on www.firebird-conference.com. On Site payment for the final rate might be possible depending on the number of subscribed visitors. The room size is limited and so is the number of conference tickets we can sell.

> Few questions:
> 1) Can I buy "private ticket" at place, without pre-registration?

as i said: it might be possible

> 2) Can it be cheaper without IBE voucher?

as i said: no

> 3) If you know anybody with Firebird-related job offers, can you
> ask them to post it into firebird-job list?

We will have a bulletin board available for messages where visitors can publish their job offers, but also job searches. As i said it is open for visitors. If they use the job list or not is their decision, but there might be hint to do so.

>And this is exactly the reason why we must aggressively invade to
>other conferences. Your basic introduction to Firebird was good,
>but far not enough.

this depends on a lot of things, especially the visitors knowledge, but what do you expect within 30 minutes that were given?

If you talk about we, you can simply replace it by I. I think no one
will have a problem with having you invading all conferences. When you have one in mind, you can contact me and if it is possible, i might help you. I have also some more sessions with firebird as topic on two other conferences this year. I do my best to make Firebird as well known as possible.

Holger
www.ibexpert.com
www.firebird-conference.com