Ideas for new Date Range

[Shawn Stratton]

Hey Everyone,

Last night I got a message from Jeff Jones (Tetraboy) in regards to my
thoughts on possibly moving PHP Appalachia to the spring time rather
than having it in fall, I've been thinking about it and thinking about
it and wanted to drop a line to the group to get the discussion
going. First and foremost I've not really had a chance in the past to
participate in PHP Appalachia and I am rather excited to participate
this time, I've not really had much of an opinion so far I've just
been around to offer my help where I can but this idea is rather
intriguing so I wanted to start the topic off with some ideas that I
think we can mostly agree upon (I can at least hope.)

First and foremost, as I'm sure everyone is aware, MTACon is doing
code|works this year as a 14 day event rather than the usual 3 day
extravaganza, also Zendcon is coming a bit later in the year, and then
there are the usual MS Summit and IPC fall, all falling within a 2 to
3 month time period. This is going to stretch out the funds,
patience, and ability of a lot of people. Further, if PHP Appalachia
is going to be scheduled to not conflict with other conferences that
pushes our date range back to around Thanksgiving and further, so we
are already looking at our normal dates being off.

Gatlinburg's tourist season is now kicking into full gear and will be
in high gear well into October, however, during the months of November
and December Gatlinburg gets snowy and nasty to be honest, having
lived in the area (Knoxville and Eastern TN) I can vouch for that
first hand, however if we push into early spring we'd be avoiding
tourist season (thereby qualifying for off-season prices) and being
able to go when things aren't so crowded; we would also avoid
conflicts with other php centric conferences if we schedule before |
tek vs. getting timing right between ZendCon, |works, IPC Fall, MS
Summit, etc.

Ultimately, rescheduling to spring effectively means that there would
be no PHP Appalachia 09 but with all the changes that this year is
bringing with the new version of PHP, the leaps and bounds the major
frameworks are making, and the new love php is giving/getting from
Microsoft this year already seems bustling and busy and I personally
think the stories will be better once we're all settled in. I realise
the decision is up to us collectively but I strongly feel that if we
don't we'll be excluding a lot of individuals due to constraints on
budgets, time off from work, etc.

Anyway that's my 3 cents (inflation is kicking in,) I wish you all a
great evening,

Shawn Stratton

[ElizabethN]

On Jun 22, 10:45 pm, Shawn Stratton <shawn.strat...@gmail.com> wrote:
> however if we push into early spring we'd be avoiding
> tourist season (thereby qualifying for off-season prices) and being
> able to go when things aren't so crowded; we would also avoid
> conflicts with other php centric conferences if we schedule before |
> tek vs. getting timing right between ZendCon, |works, IPC Fall, MS
> Summit, etc.
>

As I put on my PHP App t-shirt this morning, I reminded myself that I
should reply to this thread. Okay, so it's taken me until 3:30 pm to
get a chance to do it. Suck it. :)

I think hosting it in the spring would be fine. The only thing that
might conflict would be PHP Quebec (which hasn't been announced yet
but is usually in early March). I think if we went with late March or
early April, we would fall in the sweet spot.

Really, the biggest obstacle right now is the money. In order to take
money from people you have to give them firm dates and a firm
location. But you can't firm up a location without putting a
substantial deposit down, which requires getting money from people.

I don't think anybody wants to pony up the $2000+ that they might
require to hold the place, so perhaps we can do this:

1- pick a weekend
2- pick a venue (and a backup venue in case the first is not
available) and figure out how many bedrooms will be available (and
thus how many people can reserve a spot)
3- announce the event
4- collect enough money from people to reserve the cabin (or backup
cabin if the first isn't available)

and go from there.

Worst case scenario is that we either have to go with a different
venue than we originally planned, or at the very worst, cancel the
thing and refund everyone's money if we don't get enough takers to
hold a cabin.

We just need someone to spearhead the planning, and to collect the
money, and to sign his/her name on the dotted line. I'd volunteer,
but I have a lot on my plate in the next few months and I'm sure
there's someone who will be more reliable than I am :)

Now, there's my 3 cents :)

Cheers!
E.