PHP North West 2011
7 - 9 Oct 2011 at Ramada Manchester Picadilly

Really enjoyed the conference again this year, lots of notes to ponder over and ideas for improving the way I write and manage my code.

Big thankyou to everyone involved.

Thanks for a well organised and awesome conference. It was worth it! Too bad I couldn't join the talk of Volker Dusch on sunday because it was full, otherwise no complaints (besides the wifi but that has already been said a lot of times).

My first conference so I have nothing to compare it with, but I had a thoroughly enjoyable time, learned a great deal and met many like-minded people. Well done to all the organisers/helpers!

Just excellent. The venue was good on all accounts.
Enjoyed the great content provided by the speakers. The great atmosphere from even before the conf until afterwards. Helpers were really helpful, which is obviously what they're for, but they deserve the attention.
Won't be commenting on the WiFi ;-)

Very well done. Compliments to everyone involved!

See you next year for sure!

Great conference! Job well done!!! On all accounts. The only thing you had no control over but was the biggest frustration for most of the attendees was the lack of wifi, especially for abroad visitors. It prevented to create a buzz on twitter/facebook/google+ and to provide immediate feedback on joind.in.

Don't let this upset you as you had no influence on it. Great job anyways.

I really enjoyed the whole weekend. Definitely coming next year, and will try and badger even more work mates to make the effort.

Good points,
value - seriously, I was amazed at the price of the ticket for the standard of conference
speakers - Some really great, charismatic speakers, and a great range of topics to choose from.
catering - Good food, queues were fine and there always seemed to be loads of drinks available. Open bar wasn't the scrum I expected it to be.
internet - the 3g reception was excellent... (I didn't even try the WiFi!)

Maybe Not so good,
30 min talks on Sunday. I think a small gap between sessions (so the second talk doesn't start late) and just a bit longer (45 min time limit?) would have been a lot better.
Some speakers struggled with feedback on the mics. Maybe a quick talk to volunteers how to fix those minor issues.

See you next year!

Great event. Preferred the first day to the second, as the talks on the second seemed a lot more basic. Beyond that great weekend.

Great event as ever.

I did prefer the previous location, but with numbers expanding I can see why it had to be moved. Would have been nice to actually have WiFi too. I think I got on once during both days.

This was my first conference and it was fantastic, can't wait to come back next year!

In terms of holding a general conference, overall the venue was better than the MCC, although I personally preferred the layout of the main room at the MCC because the tiered seating made for a better view. In all other respects (location, food, bars, moving between tracks, capacity, etc) the Ramada/Mercure wins hands down.

However, for a tech conference, the Wifi provision was criminal. If I was organising the conference, this would be a deal breaker for next year. It was obvious they did not point out to the organisers that the codes for the Wifi were limited to 20 people and then we were expected to figure out which of 10 codes to use between us that could each only support 20 each. The actually access points were accessible in all of the rooms and showed a strong connection, but the mind bogglingly stupid infrastructure stopped them actually being useful. They MUST sort it out for next year.

The main 3 tracks all had great speakers on both days. Seems there were a few talks I would have liked to have seen in the Unconference, but wasn't really aware they were going on. It would have been good if this schedule could have been available on the day through the conference website.

The availability of the free bar was much improved as well.

Overall it was an excellent conference, thank you to the organisers, helpers, speakers and attendees. I look forward to coming back next year!

My fav PHP conference to date - great talks + speakers, good large bar + quick to get food.

Better than last year in all respects apart from the wifi.

Good:
- One centrally located venue
- More speakers (and some really really good ones at that)
- Food (massive improvement on last year)
- Bar (1 drink per badge)

Bad:
- Wifi
- Went far too quickly
- Difficult to choose which talks to go to (technically not a bad)

Always a pleasure to attend PHPNW. Constructive criticism GO:

* Hotel wifi was abysmal. Codes were only valid for 20 connections, and bound to your mac address so you couldn't change once you'd entered a code? Massive failing by the hotel for a technical conference.

* Lunch queues were slow, though certainly an improvement on last year. So long as it keeps improving we'll get there!

* It was quite late in the day that the lights in Track 1 were turned off. Until then, the slides were pretty difficult to see, no matter how close you were.

* Central stands area was a bit cozy at times, not really big enough for 400+ delegates :)

Regardless, still a good day and worth coming to, thanks again for all your efforts in providing it! See you all next year!

Top marks. Really well organised, excellent socials, great venue. Best conference of it's type that I have been to for a while (and I have been to a few). Thanks to all involved!

Aside from the wifi (yeah, I think that's been mentioned before) and the 30 minute-sessions (should've been 60 minutes like all the others), I really loved the conference again. You can expect me back next year.

Very good conference for one more year and had a fantastic time! Well done and thank you. :)

Personally, the only thing I did not like was the venue:
- Wifi problems.
- Track 3 room was quite small.
- The projectors' screens in all the rooms (except of the one in the ballroom) were very low causing a large part of the screen not to be visible unless you were sitting in the front row. When the room is flat and not amphitheatric, the lower end of the screen should be raised higher.
- The lighting (or the quality of the projector, I'm not so sure which of the 2 was the problem) in the ballroom was not that good.

The only plus of the venue was that there was a parking space :)

Well done for one more time (obviously I explained only the bad points) and I'll see you again next year!

Had a fantastic time at the conference. Didn't make it to the Friday night social unfortunately but was there for Saturday and Sunday. I'll just list my main good/bad points:

Good:
- Unconference - loved it, and was glad to be able to speak
- Timings were spot on, good breaks, etc.
- Talks well chosen, pushed for choice (so good job it was videoed)
- Saturday night social, great atmosphere

Bad:
- WIfi (yawn)
- Food queues (but meh)
- Track 3 too small on Saturday
- Track 2 too long and thin on Saturday
- Needed more places to sit during lunch and throughout Saturday evening

Huge thanks yet again to Jeremy, Emma, Rick, Lorna, MD, all helpers, speakers & attendees for making it a great event. See you all next year if not before.

The list of good is long, the list of bad is short so only noting down the bad stuff

wifi
lunch queues - it was better than last year though.
the available amount of seating area for lunch.
The amount of plug sockets in the uncon (but the lack of wifi kinda made that not important. )

In no particular order:

Love the new venue! Apparently the wi-fi was bad - I didn't notice as I was **USUALLY JUST LISTENING TO THE SPEAKERS** :)

The choice of which tracks to attend was more difficult than in previous years, and usually it felt you couldn't go wrong wherever you went. All the speakers I did see I'd like to see again.

Whilst I appreciate is was distracting to those at the back of track 1, asking folks to be quiet in the exhibition area is unrealistic.

Food was great at lunch - I was too distracted at the bar to catch dinner. Kro3 worked as a great location for pre and post conference social.

good:
- speakers (as always)
- food
- nice open main bar/evening meail
- bigger venue for lounging around
- unconference (awesome!!!)
- organisation

not so good
- wifi
- common area (where all the stands were) was too small and hard to move around
- finding out what was on the unconference should be on main site?
- track 2 room was too long and positioning was awkward
- track 1 at the back should have an additional wall/door to block off sound coming from common area
- should be an saturday evening social after the hotel bar drinks, so many good bars in manchester!

Yet another cracking event :)

The change of venue was pretty good even though the tracks where spread over 3 floors, as mentioned by Mark, running out of coffee was a bit frustrating but I suppose that's to be expected at a conference with coders lol. Utilising both the conference room and the main bar for the evenings festivities worked really well.

Overall it was a pretty good venue that will provide plenty of space for future events

Shame about the wifi, made it very hard to provide joined.in feedback from the venue itself. Food wasn't as good as at the MCC, with too few tables for actually sitting doen to eat. and running out of coffee at lunchtime was frsutrating. Those were the negatives, and all things that can be addressed for next year.
On the plus side:the venue was large enough to handle the number of attendees, while providing rooms for three threads plus the unconference (so the room was too small and crowded for the number of people that attended Derick Rethans' talk on PHP Extensions) so it offers all that's necessary for the future as PHPNW continues to grow.