I managed to catch up with both Steves and Joel before I left but sadly I didn't get a chance to thank all of the organizers. If any of you read this please pass my thanks along and know that as a speaker and an attendee I had a great experience.
Some thoughts by category:
Location
The Hampton Roads Convention Center and the Embassy Suites next door are a really great location to hold a conference. The food was good and the rooms (conference and hotel) were very nice. The only strange thing is best summed up by this tweet by @ondrejbalas:
The fact that the hotel has free liquor instead of wifi is puzzling. Maybe if I drink enough I won't care about getting online? #madexpo
— Ondrej Balas (@ondrejbalas) June 28, 2012
Events
Without a crazy venue (like CodeMash's water park) it takes effort to have a conference that encourages a lot of mixing and interaction. The fact that the organizers put together a free attendee party and another party the next day for speakers really helped get everyone together outside of sessions to mix. This will always happen a little bit but I had way more awesome conversations than even I had expected. Thanks to everyone for the hard work on making MADExpo great even after hours.
People
I love attending events where I leave feeling more excited about being a developer and creator than when I get there. While I don't think I was getting bored with development before the level of excitement I have now makes the previous levels look really low. Thanks to the speakers and attendees that I had awesome chats with. Big thanks to everyone who hung out in the lobby until 2 am talking about everything and anything.
MADExpo 2012 was awesome. If you are in the area you owe it to yourself to make it next year. I'm hoping I can.
Jared, thanks for coming and thanks so much for the kind words. We, too, hope you'll be back for 2013!
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