Announcing Boston2008: our upcoming Drupalcon
The Drupal Association
is pleased to announce that the next Drupalcon will be held in Boston, Massachusetts, USA from March 3 - 6, 2008 in the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center.
This Drupalcon represents two big advancements for Drupalcon.
- Larger capacity. The last two Drupalcon's have sold out, capped at 450 people. Depending on final arrangements we may be able to handle 700 at this event.
- Community expansion. Drupalcon is being held at the same time/place as AIIM International Exposition & Conference, the largest content management technology conference in North America. Though technically independent of each other, the Boston team is working to arrange some cross-event access. The goal: introduce Drupal to thousands of potential new Drupalers.
The Drupalcon Boston 2008 team is working hard to finalize conference details before opening registration and the session proposal system. We are also just now finalizing sponsorship packages. Watch boston2008.drupalcon.org and the drupal.org home page (rss feed) for future announcements. In the mean time, start making your travel arrangements and gathering your session proposal information.
The Drupal Association encourages potential organizers from the community to start preparing proposals for the fall 2008 Europe Drupalcon and the spring 2009 North America Drupalcon. We are also interested in hosting Drupalcons in other parts of the world.
W00t!
/me goes off looking for tickets and figuring out visa procedures.
Kaustubh Srikanth
http://houndbee.com
http://radioverve.com
http://infinitymag.com
woot I am comming
woot I am comming
Bah
Should have done it a couple weeks later (Mar 17 - 20) to pull in us college students from Spring Break.
-Craig Jackson
-Web Developer
Or how about ...
March 31-April 5, when some California schools are on spring break? Wishful thinking, I know ...
Hotels and Restuarants
Here's a list of some of the hotels and restaurants near the convention center:
Hotels
Westin Boston Waterfront
425 Summer Street, Boston, MA
(617) 532-4600
Seaport Hotel
1 Seaport Ln, Boston, MA
(617) 385-4000
Sheraton
374 Congress St, Boston, MA
(617) 542-9377
Restaurants
Sauciety Restaurant
425 Summer St, Boston, MA
(617) 532-4670
Anthony's Pier 4 Restaurant
140 Northern Ave, Boston, MA
(617) 482-6262
Aura Restaurant
1 Seaport Ln, Boston, MA
(617) 385-430
Channel Cafe
300 Summer St
Boston, MA 02210
(617) 426-0695
Google Maps Links:
Hotels
Restaurants
The Westin and Seaport web
The Westin and Seaport web reservation sites linked from the convention center site report no availability, at least during the dates I was looking at (arrive 2nd, leave 6th). I called the Westin and they said they had very limited availability at their full rate ($509!!).
The Sheraton reports availability and seems to be right next to the restaurants. The rate I saw for a double room was $309.
A good deal also seems to be Club Quarters.
yep.
seems that doing this at the same time as another huge event was not the best idea in-terms of availability of affordable hotels.
I love Boston!
Congratulations Boston! Here we come!
I love Boston very much. It's a city that is still friendly to cars and people are friendly. The last time I went there, though, is about 10 years ago. I lot happened in Boston since that time.
Since a lot is happening for Drupal 6, too, Boston is the city of choice.
Invitations
Re: NOTE, however, that the Drupal Association is not a U.S. entity, and thus is not able to provide a Letter of Invitation, which may be required (and the lack of which may prevent you from attending this Drupalcon.)
Could we possibly ask the ACM or some other US entity to do these for us?
could maybe the folks at
could maybe the folks at AIIM International Exposition & Conference, help?
The events are at the same time & location with a similar topic
-------------------
http://www.PrivacyDigest.com/ News from the Privacy Front (Drupal)
http://www.SunflowerChildren.org/ Helping children around the world ( Drupal)
The fee for the latest
The fee for the latest drupalcon in Barcelona was 50 euros. I have no idea about the fee for Boston, but we aim to have fairly affordable fees. The Drupalcon is getting bigger and so might go the fee in order to help covering the expenses but I wouldn't expect 500$ for a fee. Let's leave to the drupalcon organizers to let us know as soon as they can.
---
Robert Garrigos
Professional site: robert.garrigos.cat
Catalan Drupal Users Group: drupal.cat
I wouldn't expect $195
I wouldn't expect $195 either (?) but this is the price. :-( Disappointing, I must say.
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Robert Garrigos
Professional site: robert.garrigos.cat
Catalan Drupal Users Group: drupal.cat
Letter of invitation required?
Seriously?
Foreign visitors
A letter of invitation may be required for an entry visa into the U.S depending on the country of origin. Each individual person will need to verify and arrrange their own personal visa requirements before coming to the U.S as would be done on any normal visit.
Time should be spent on this especially because of the increased scrutiny at the U.S border. This line is simply a heads up so that people don't book plane tickets and/or pay for fees only to be denied entry.
Invitations...
This is a VISA requirement for entry into the U.S. please check the VISA requirements for your respective country and if a letter of invitation is required post back and maybe someone in the community will be able to help you out.
These are really great news
These are really great news and I appreciate the time in advance of the announcement. I already have the flight!
---
Robert Garrigos
Professional site: robert.garrigos.cat
Catalan Drupal Users Group: drupal.cat
Drupal Rocks!
Great Venue..I'll try and see if one of us or our partner can be there.
--
Roshan Shah
http://www.bpocanada.com
T : 604-630-4292
Vancouver, Canada
Skype/GoogleTalk/Yahoo : bpocanada
Heck yeah!
I'll see you guys there! How much do the registration packages usually run for DrupalCon? I'm just trying to figure out how many of us can go.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
AYCOM Consulting - High-end Web and eCommerce Development
http://www.aycomconsulting.com
I'm curious how much too.
I'm curious how much too. I'd love to act on my impulsive urge to buy a ticket right now, but not before I know the conference cost. The AIIM conference looks interesting, but I don't know if I can afford $500 per day on top of drupalcon.
http://www.trailheadinteractive.com
Yep. I'll see ya
Yep. I'll see ya there.
--
"I'm not concerned about all hell breaking loose, but that a PART of hell will break loose... it'll be much harder to detect." - George Carlin
--
Personal: http://www.nicklewis.org
Work: http://www.onnetworks.com
ROAD TRIP!
So close!
I'll try to make a Road Trip out of this :)
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Jason
11 days too early
Having the conference in Boston this close to St. Patrick's Day is criminal.
jetlag + hangovers
well its a good way to kill the jet Lag - now with hangovers ;)
it worked for me in SF so why not Boston?
/morten.dk *king of Denmark*
I live in Boston, can give advice
I live here in Boston and am happy to give any advice on travel or lodging, just use my contact form. I'm good at finding cheap places to crash. There is a strong local community here as well, look up the Boston group on groups.drupal.org.
Hostels
Got a couple emails already about hostels. I stayed in the Boston Backpackers Hostel once and it was reasonable, good for travelers since it costs $25/night for the dorms and only 50 meters from the subway. Here's a decent list of local ones, including the BBH I just mentioned.
http://www.twizi.com/bostonhostels.htm
Another Boston local
I'm local in Boston as well - there's plenty of great places to stay and Boston is a small walkable town. The Lenox hotel on Boylston Street is a great small hotel - I suggest trying to make a "bid" for a hotel room on priceline - $150 probably gets a room there... all the best bars and restaurarants are next to it in Back Bay (Best boston area)
Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to Boston
Hope everyone's not too jealous that Agaric Design Collective flexed our muscle to bring the next Drupalcon to our neighborhood! ;-)
(The location is news to us, too, but welcome news.)
That link for the Boston Drupal group, hyperlinked for y'all:
http://groups.drupal.org/boston
and on the topic of cheap places to crash: http://couchsurfing.com
We're not in the city, Agaric's locus is 18 miles West of Boston, and so we're not as knowledgable as Sean. But we are around and happy to try to be helpful!
benjamin, Agaric Design Collective
Maybe next time
Wish I could make it back to Boston in March, but I'm afraid it's just not gonna happen :(. I'm going back to university this year: and in Australia, Mar 3-6 will be my second week of classes for the year. But to all you Boston Drupallers: thanks for having me at your meetup when I visited last October. You're a strong community, and I'm sure you'll put on a great conference! Hopefully I'll be able to make the next DrupalCon for 2008.
Jeremy Epstein - GreenAsh
I been waiting for this !!!!!
FInally , cant wait to be there !!
Student Rates?
I'm not sure what the fees are going to be but is it possible that students especially the GHOP/SOC participants receive some type of other fee scale? I'm 17, granted I make ok money doing freelance drupal development, I still will need to purchase a flight, and depending on the fees for drupalcon, it may be out of my price range.
It's probably not going to be as bad as you think.
It's probably not going to be as bad as you think. The $500 number mentioned was for a conf that was happening at the same time(AIIM International Exposition & Conference, not Drupal). I think the last DrupalCon was something like 50 dollars/euros(?). They haven't mentioned the price yet(that I've seen), but I'm guessing that it will be in the same range.
-------------------
http://www.PrivacyDigest.com/ News from the Privacy Front (Drupal)
http://www.SunflowerChildren.org/ Helping children around the world ( Drupal)
Actual costs $420 - cost to you $195
Hi, the actual costs are $420 per person. We are charging $195 so there are no student discounts.
See this thread on traveling to Boston inexpensively: http://boston2008.drupalcon.org/can-not-afford-come-think-again
Kieran Lal
Board member of the Drupal association
Coordinator of the security team
Coordinator of the test driven development team
Oh yeah !
I'll try really hard to make it ! I just wished it was in Canada instead ; maybe next year ?
Edit : Even a few kilometers away, my other post prohibitive fee shows why I'd think a lot about it.
Distributed authentication on boston2008.drupalcon.org
Can the Drupal module and distributed authentication be enabled on boston2008.drupalcon.org so I can just use my drupal.org account?
--
Jonathan Brown
http://openpackage.biz/
the future of that module is
the future of that module is a bit uncertain - i won't rely on d.o running that for that much longer. further, i prefer all users to provide email addresses. so, not this time.
No worries - roll on
No worries - roll on OpenID!
On a side note, the dates and location of the conference should really be on the front page of boston2008.drupalcon.org .
--
Jonathan Brown
http://openpackage.biz/
+1 !
+1 !
prohibitive fee
Take a look at the top of http://boston2008.drupalcon.org/ :
This price is really prohibitive for me and it's doubtful I could make it and it's really a shame as I could pay around 50$ to take a small 2ft2 on the floor of that huge place.
A freezing fee
I do agree. That $195 fee is like a cold shower for me. I don't think I will make it this time. I love Boston, but adding hotel, gas and various fees, it can quickly become prohibitive.
Also, I thought I would be able to go there one or two days. Now I guess that this is not possible either since the $195 fee does not seam to be splittable by the number of days one wants to attend.
I guess now that I will decide going there at the last minute. But hold on, usually conferences are hiking up their prices for the last minutes show goers. I hope they won't do this, too.
If you can go, though, go. It's an event that no one should miss.
$195!?!?!
.... thats robbery
[Edited for language: nevets]
The budget
For more information about where that fee is coming from, read http://boston2008.drupalcon.org/drupalcon-budget. The fee is actually less than half the actual cost per person. The costs of finding space and providing for attendees at Cons the size that Drupal is at now makes quite the jump in expense. If the Barcelona venue had not been donated, that fee would have been higher than the 50 euro ($80) that is was.
Opportunity fee
See: http://boston2008.drupalcon.org/can-not-afford-come-think-again
There's over 500 job listings for Drupal positions here: http://groups.drupal.org/jobs
There's tens of thousands of page views in this forum per month: http://drupal.org/paid-services
Perhaps the conference will provide you with more value than you think.
Kieran Lal
Board member of the Drupal association
Coordinator of the security team
Coordinator of the test driven development team
Anyone who's ever made a
Anyone who's ever made a dollar on Drupal shouldn't be upset about the cost of admission. I've made most of my income for the past year and a half using Drupal, and $195 doesn't bother me a bit. In fact, the $1200 for flight and hotel seem pretty worth it too.
I can see how a Drupal hobbyist might see $195 as a bit steep. But what do you gain as a hobbyist by attending an industry conference?