cf.Objective() doubled between 2006 and 2007 and will almost certainly double in 2008 but we are in two minds about going beyond 400 attendees. Part of the draw is the more intimate atmosphere and keeping the focus on advanced CF with a sprinkling of RIA for CFers (around 25% of our content in 2008 is AJAX or Flex, as it relates to CF mostly).

I think there’s a place for both cf.Objective() and CFUNITED. 2008 will be the first year with substantial content overlap (CFUNITED are adding a frameworks track and will, I suspect, end up repeating quit a bit of the frameworks content from cf.Objective()). WebManiacs definitely seems to be the wildcard there.

I attended and spoke at CFUNITED Express in the Bay Area. Their “pro” is allowing you to use the cost of an “Express” toward your main CFUNITED ticket but the “con” for the Bay Area was that it was expensive to put on a one day show in San Francisco. I prefer a multi-day format where you get to stay and socialize in the evenings.

@Keeler Yes, it will be interesting to see how it falls out. I hope 360 lives long.

@Jeff Wow, I had no idea. You should’ve told us that when you booked it. I would have then renegotiated the rate with the hotel for everyone. We get no “kickbacks” from the hotel for the rooms. We make nothing off the room blocks. In fact, if they don’t get filled, we actually owe them money for the unused room. The only reason we do the room block is to try to provide a cheaper cost for you guys. Which in the case of Seattle seems silly since you got it cheaper.

The only “perk” that might be considered a kickback that we received from the hotel was Award Points for every dollar spent. But we didn’t get any extra cash, rebates or per-room payment. If the same thing happens again, please let us know. We pay the same rate as everyone else for our rooms, so we just assumed it was the “best” rate.

This left me the impression (perhaps incorrectly) that smaller conferences were also getting kickbacks from the hotel, and that the hotel was just passing that price onto the conference attendee.

Can the next 360Flex conference after Italy be in Belgium (think about it, you could advertise “The Flex Conference with the Best Beer in the World”)