The State of Developer Conferences

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Style Pass

2023-02-07 15:00:31

I ran my first developer conference back in 2007. It was called Flex Camp Boston and it was a 1-day, single track conference all about Adobe’s Flex, which was growing in popularity at the time. I planned it in about 90 stressful days, but was fortunate that tickets were sold out weeks before the event.

Since 2007, I’ve run or been involved in running a lot of in-person developer conferences in Boston, Miami, New York, Orlando and even Sofia, Bulgaria. Some I ran independently while others I ran for my employer. I’ve been fortunate that, in all but one case, which was an event I ran in Orlando weeks before the pandemic shut down, they have all been successful, even if they didn’t sell out capacity.

I’ve also been involved in running virtual events for developers since 2017 including a number of virtual conferences beginning in 2021. My most recent was just last week.

I share all this background because I hope that it lends some credibility when I tell you that I am concerned about the current state of developer conferences.