What with having to register today in order to get the early bird discount to @media 2005, I've been weighing up the options.
Some of you may have noticed the text in the sidebar becoming less optimistic about going. It's mainly down to finance… isn't is always?
As a self-employed guy/a freelancer/whatever and coming up to the end of my first year of trading, it's been a busy time and budgets have been tight. Although, that's probably also true outside of the first year. 🙂
£345 + VAT is quite a lot for a conference. But Patrick Griffiths has organised a great event, which is going to be right here in the UK for a change! It will be a fantastic opportunity to learn from and meet some of the people I've only been in touch with on forums or by e-mail or spoken to on the phone.
So, it's a trade off:
- Don't go, have more money to be able to keep paying myself, miss out on kneeing someone in the nadgers and all the fun and games… I mean, learning and networking. Or;
- Go, have less money in the kitty, work harder later to make up for it, meet lots of people, learn a few things along the way.
What do people think? At the end of today, I could always work a little bit harder to get anough to pay the full registration cost, but there's also the fact that places at the conference are limited and selling out from the sounds of it.
7 Responses to “So, do I go to @media?”
Well .j its a dilema. I know the reasons for going have decreased markedly since I found out I couldn’t afford it (insert moan about having-to-shell-out-3K-for-a-stairlift-because-I’m-decrepid-at-only-22 here) but personally I think you should go. It’ll be a great opportunity to learn from/get drunk with some of the leading lights in the web world today.
And if all else fails you could do Derek Fetherstone a favour and go for Malarky’s little gems 🙂
(and I want a conference bag so I need you to sneak me out one 😉 )
Yeah, come on! Plus you can always write it off as a tax break as you’re self-employed…
Well, I know I left it a bit late to make a post like this, but it’s now too late to turn back. I’ve just registered.
@ vigo: Yeah, who’s going to look after me now you can’t go?! I’ll see what I can do on the conference bag front, but they’ll be keeping an eye on me now that you’ve asked! And I’m too scared of Malarkey to go kneeing him one.
@ Matthew Pennell: Looking at your site, it was last minute for you too, eh?
Yeah, just a little bit – I was hoping to get a few more people to come along as well, but I’ll have to make do with introducing myself to everyone I meet in the hope of making enough friends to keep my evenings occupied… I hope there are big name badges at this thing… 😉
I’ll be your friend! =) Of the people that I know are going, the only person I’ve actually met is Mr Patrick H. Lauke. So meeting some familiar digital faces is going to be an experience.
Maybe we should set up a Flickr group where people who are going to @media can pool photos or link to one. Then we’d know what everyone looks like before we turn up!
well, i’m not about to get suckered into flipper…aeh…flicker, but feel free to add http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/16143051/ and http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/15705531/ to it 😉
i’d say the networking chance makes up for the hefty entrance fee…go on, you know you want to.
As you might have seen, I’ve now set up a Flickr group.
All the comments are going to end up being by me, but I’ve added those two, Patrick.