Tap My Mind

How To Have a Successful Day-Long Conference

I am the president of the WI .NET Users Group, and we held our 4th annual Deeper in .NET conference on April 22, 2006 (our first since I became president last year).  The event was a great success, and people keep talking to me about wonderful they thought it was.  This post is a summary of the work that went into that, as well as our results.

Deeper in .NET 2006 was a great success with about 400 people in total attendance.  We had five incredible speakers – Michele Leroux Bustamante, Scott Hanselman, Julie Lerman, Bill Hatfield and Jason Beres (four on the Speaker's Bureau) – and we had over $70,000 in prizes (150+ pieces) to give away!

We decided to "go all out" this year, so in addition to our conference itself, we had an "Influencer's Party with the Speakers" the night before our event for the local bloggers, regional UG leaders, and other area "celebrities".  We brought in a couple of local bands, and had a nice "Welcome to Wisconsin" buffet at the event hotel.

Many groups are having these day-long, mutli-session events.  Why not yours?  It's really not that hard. 

All you have to do is:

• Find the speakers
• Find the venue
• Find the sponsors
• Invite people

How hard can that be, right?    I won't kid you and tell you that it doesn't take effort, commitment and planning, but it's definitely doable.

It's exponentially easier if you have a good committee that is able to offer help and support.  I did get a lot of help from my committee, but looking back, I didn't draw on them nearly as much as I should have or could have.

This article is to give you a little insight into what we have done to have a successful conference.

A Little Background

For each of the previous three years Deeper in .NET has been a once-a-year, single track, single day, five session, free conference with big-name speakers on a Saturday.  This had worked really well for us in the past, so, after some thought and discussion, we decided to keep the same format for this year. 

Here are some of the reasons why we think this forumla has worked so well for us.

• Once a year
  • Having the "big event" once a year makes it special.  People that may not attend any of our other events will come to this one because it's special.  People look forward to it.  They ask about it for months leading up.  They talk about it to their co-workers.  If we had events like this every quarter, people would just say "I'll go to the next one.  It's only three months away."
  • These events can be expensive.  You don't have to spend a lot of money to have a good conference, but you might have to open the coffers to have a great one.  Since many users groups do not have income or charge dues, this money comes from sponsors, and they only want to give so much.
• Single track
  • First and foremost, it's easier to coordinate a single track event than a multi-track event.  We did discuss multiple tracks this year (beginner & advanced, or web & Windows, etc.), but quickly (after 10 minutes) realized that the planning involved probably wouldn't add much benefit to our users.
  • On a related note, it's obviously more expensive, and budgets are limited.
  • With multiple tracks, attendees must choose.  If there is a very popular speaker during one session, the other presentations at that time would be very empty.  Or people may have to try to choose between two presentations that are both interesting to them.
  • We are still open to multiple tracks in the future, but decided the benefits would be outweighed by the costs (financial and time) this year.
• Single day on a Saturday
  • We're not Microsoft, and we're not trying to be.  We don't have the ability to throw a Tech-Ed sized conference, and expect people to commit two or more days.
  • People have jobs, and we determined that our turnout will be better if we have the event on a Saturday so that most people would not have to miss work.  It does eat up their personal time, though, so that is another reason that we did not do a two-day conference.
• Five sessions
  • Given that our conference was on a single day, five sessions was the perfect number to provide a decent session length (90 minutes each), a lunch Q&A panel, and breaks between each session and still allow us to start and end at reasonable times (8:00 AM - 6:00 PM).
• Free
  • When our group was created in 2002, we decided that our sole purpose was to serve our users.  We are passionate about this technology and want to evangelize it to as many interested developers as possible.  Offering free training events by means of our monthly meetings was never a question for us.  Extending this philosophy to our day-long conference was a natural step.  Free content for those who are interested.
  • We have incredible community support through our sponsors.  They are very willing to write a check to show their support for the group and for the technology, as well as to get a chance to talk to this audience on the exhibit floor.
• Big-name speakers
  • I have no doubt that our local speakers have as much knowledge and ability as these national speakers.  However, most of our attendees will never get the chance to go to a PDC or a Tech-Ed, so giving them the chance to see, meet and talk to these "famous" speakers makes the day that much more special.

Planning Stages -- Choosing Speakers

Planning for Deeper in .NET 2006 began several months ago, around September 2005.  It started in one of our monthly Executive Committee meetings.  We were throwing around topics and speaker names and quickly realized that there were so many of each to choose from.  We decided that we wanted our focus to be on new technology (.NET 2.0), or technology that will be released within 6-12 months (WinFX).  Other things that are farther out than that are interesting, but wouldn't provide our attendees with much value at this time, so we preferred to leave those topics to a future meeting or conference.

Great speakers will give great presentations, regardless of the topic.

With this in mind, we chose to start with speaker selection.  So each of our committee members independently submitted their top 3-5 speaker choices.  I compiled the names and ranked them by number of nominations.  I had quite a list -- somewhere around 25 names if I remember correctly -- so I sent the ranked list back out for a vote.  After we narrowed the list down to around 10, I just started sending e-mails out to these speakers to see who was available.

Don't worry about asking the big-names to come speak for you.  They're normal people, and they love this stuff as much as you do, if not more.  Chances are, if they're not already booked, or over-booked, and can break away from work, they will happily say yes.

The last few years, Deeper in .NET has been in spring -- here in Wisconsin it can be a little chilly at times, and by the time spring rolls around, people are typically very willing to leave the house for a day for something like this.  So we were targeting a Saturday in March or April.  We didn't want to pick a specific date in advance because that might cause some speakers to have to decline off the bat.  Instead I told the speakers our target date range, but did mention our preferred date.  For example, "The event will be on a Saturday in March or April.  Our preferred date is April 22, but we want to remain flexible on this so we can work with your schedule."

Venue Selection

So, how do you book a venue without knowing a date?  Especially in the heart of wedding season?  Easy, you visit a number of suitable venues and ask each of them to "pencil you in" on a particular date.  We didn't try to hide anything from them, or be sneaky about it.  I was very clear and told them that we would like to have our conference at their facility, but I was waiting on speaker confirmation before I could reserve the date.  Most venues were happy to put our name on the calendar without a deposit, especially since we made it clear that if someone else needed to book that date before we had confirmed, they could call us and give us first right of refusal. 

Get your name on the calendars of several venues.  I recommend hotels with conference rooms.

We ended up working with the Hyatt Regency Milwaukee.  Hotels have worked out very well for us for these events, especially since there are always some people coming from out of town.  We may look into some of the area colleges for future events, though.

Since this was our fourth event of this type, it was easier for us to estimate the number of attendees.  If you haven't done this before, though, that can be very difficult.  Based on our history, I would guess that a well-promoted event of this type would draw a crowd 5-10 times the size of the crowd at one of your typical monthly meetings.  What I would suggest is finding a venue with a number of meeting rooms in various sizes, or perhaps one with an "air wall" that can be removed if you need more space.  This year, we had roughly 10,000 square feet of space, with about 2,500 of that set aside for sponsor exhibits.

To Eat or Not To Eat

Definitely plan to provide lunch if you have the funds.  It keeps people close by all day, and less tempted to leave mid-day.  Additionally, we had a Q&A session over lunch with the available speakers and a few Microsoft employees.  We were originally looking at a boxed lunch (sandwich, chips and fruit) from the hotel catering menu, but decided on pizza because it was considerably less expensive, and let's face it, geeks like their pizza.  :)

The pizza wasn't actually on the catering menu.  We had to ask about it.  Don't be afraid to ask for something that you don't see.  Pizza was about $7 per person, where boxed lunches were around $20.

Sponsors and Budgets

Unless you charge membership dues, your group probably doesn't have any money.  Even if you do charge membership dues, you probably don't have much.  The only way you can cover these kinds of costs is with the generosity of your sponsors.

We actively sought sponsors for the three months leading up to Deeper in .NET.  Our group decided to solicit "Annual Sponsors" instead of seeking sponsors for the event itself.  While this event is far and away the biggest part of our budget, we do have a few other expenses throughout the year, and we didn't want to have to seek sponsors each time one of these needs would crop up.

So, take a few days to set up an annual budget.  It doesn't have to be anything fancy.  I just used Excel.

I listed out our budget items, their cost and their priority.  Priority 1 items are must-haves, and if you can't get sponsors to cover that amount, then you should postpone your event.  Priority 5 items are things that would be "really cool" if we had unlimited resources -- basically, plan to not get these things.  Also, be sure to add some cushion to your budget.  I had a line item called "cushion" with a priority of 3.

Be sure to acknowledge your sponsors at every opportunity.  Make them glad they chose to support you.  Put them in a prominent, high-traffic area.

We put our exhibit area between the check-in and food areas and the conference room.  When people arrived in the morning, they passed by the sponsors.  When they got food, they passed by the sponsors.  If someone had to leave to use the restroom, they passed by the sponsors. 

Additionally, we allowed our sponsors to provide a raffle prize (optional since we had so many other prizes).  The winner of each sponsor's prize was chosen from the business cards they collected throughout the day, giving attendees reason to share their info of their own free will.  We announced the winners before the breaks and they would go back and talk to the sponsors in order to get their prize.

We do not, however, give our attendee list to anyone.  Privacy is king.  It is up to the sponsors to collect their own contacts.

On the topic of sponsors, there are tons of companies that are willing to donate prizes for your raffles, although they are not in position to support you financially.  Most of our financial sponsors were local consulting firms, with a few product companies mixed in.  However, we received an unblievable amount of prizes from software companies and book publishers.  Having over $70,000 worth of prizes to give away certainly help with event marketing.

Also, if your group is an INETA member, be sure to take advantage of their resources.  While INETA will only pay for one speaker per quarter, four of our five speakers are on the INETA Speaker Bureau.

Party Like It's 1999

OK, maybe not quite like that, but make it a fun event.  As I mentioned before, we chose to have a party the night before. 

The whole point is to get people interested in your group and in .NET.  Get them talking to each other, and the buzz will begin to build itself.

What If Something Goes Wrong?

Don't worry.  Something will go wrong.  In fact, here is a little nugget that our previous president told me two nights before the conference.

One big thing will go wrong.  Then everything else will be fine.  And by the end of the day, that "big thing" won't be that big anymore.

He was right.  For our first presentation, Michele Leroux Bustamante was talking about WCF.  All of a sudden the projector stopped working.  My heart stopped for what seemed like 3 minutes.  I had the A/V guy paged, and then we went up to the stage and gave away a few more prizes until he had it straightened out.

Conclusion

I think I could write another 2,000 words about what we did and didn't do, what worked and what didn't, what we'll do again next year and what we won't, but instead I'll stop now. 

It was a very exciting event, and the process to get there was quite a learning experience.  I would be very happy to talk to anyone about this in more detail.  I will happily attempt to answer any questions you might have.  You can contact me here.

And if you have done these type of events with your group in the past, I would especially appreciate any comments on what's worked for you.  Please feel free to add your comments to this article.

Special Thanks

I mentioned above that things are much easier with people to help out.  So be sure to find those willing people in your group.  I wanted to take a minute to thank my entire Executive Committee for all of their willingness to help out with this event.  I also wanted to thank Doug Rhoten from the Chippewa Valley .NET Users Group, who was an incredible help in acquiring the majority of our prizes.  Finally I'd like to thank INETA's own Scott Spradlin, who was just planning to "come see what it was all about", but instead got put to work.    Willing people like this are what make this type of event possible.