MidwestPHP Conference
2 - 3 Mar 2013 at University of Minnesota's Continuing Education and Conference Center

I echo everyone's sentiments here. Mike, Jon, and all of the volunteers did an incredible job putting this conference together and ensuring that everything ran as smoothly and on-time as possible. Although I'm still a new developer, each session had something interesting to offer, and in many cases, I was left choosing between two or more compelling sessions. Having such a high number of quality sessions is an achievement in itself, but being able to put something like that together in a conference's first year is nothing short of outstanding.

I had a great time this weekend and was thankful to have the chance to meet and interact with so many talented individuals in my new field. Thank you to Mike, Jon, the volunteers, and all of the sponsors to help make this conference possible. I'm looking forward to next year!

Very well run, especially considering this is a first-year conference. The venue, speakers and food were all excellent. I plan on attending again next year.

Great job on the conference. I know how much work it is to do one of these and you all did a wonderful job for your first year. I can't wait to see how much this conference will grow over the next couple of years. Some of the rooms were not optimal for viewing the screens especially if you were in the back. The food was excellent! The topics covered had a good spectrum of skill levels and content so that everyone could find at least one session each time period that interested them. Looking forward to attending next year!

I haven't been to many conferences, but of the ones I've been to, this one was hands down the best. I enjoyed that it was specifically for PHP and that, of the sessions I went to, the topics were deeper and more informative of the how-to of the given topic. Other conferences I've been too have had too many sales pitch sessions. It was a major plus that is was in my backyard.

Looking forward to being a long term attender.

I would try to coordinate video recording of the sessions and then making the videos of each session available to attendees (and perhaps for a fee, non-attendees). Mostly to help us remember all the content and to let us digest a talk or two that we couldn't see.

Overall, great job!

Awesome conference guys! I hope to be able to attend next year with as low of a cost as this one was :D!

Great conference!! Mike and Jonathan did a really good job, looked like it wasn't the first edition at all. Conference ran smoothly except some minor problems with the microphones, there were very interesting talks, nice food, beverages all around and lots of gifts. The venue was also an excellent choice, nice rooms and a WiFi that worked!

There are only a couple of things I would improve:

* Communication with the speakers previously to the conference, as there was some lack of information regarding schedule, hotel...

* Having 4 tracks is awesome because you have so many options to choose a talk that interests you. But at the same time, you are missing almost the 75% of the talks, some of them really good.

Hope to see you again next year. Definitely worth it the 22-hour trip to Minnesota :)

Scott,

Glad to hear you enjoyed yourself. I can't speak for Mike directly but I am very much looking forward to it next year already. Thoughts are already running through my mind as to what we can do differently.

Great variety in the speakers and topics. Things ran very smoothly.