MILOfest 2011 Update

Hey folks,

It’s been about 7 months from MILOfest 2010 and I’ve been fielding questions about MILOfest 2011. First, the good news – MILOfest 2011 is definitely happening. The dates will likely be November 10-13, 2011.

Next, the frustrating news. As much as I’ve been trying to plan to take MILOfest to the West Coast this year, most of my facility options have been significantly more expensive than where we’ve held it the past two years. In some cases, the fees would make it nearly twice as expensive to produce, which means I would have to double the cost of attending — and I won’t do that to you.

It’s my goal to keep the registration price as close to last year’s as possible. I think it’s awfully fair to ask $500-$650 for a 2.5 day conference and I hope you do too.

Lastly, I owe MILOfest 2010 attendees an apology and some videos. To be quite blunt, I over-promised on distributing videos of last year’s conference and I seem to lack the skills and time to get it done. Finis Price has been generous enough to volunteer to help, so we’ll see if we can’t get them to you somehow. Here’s the point, though — I’m not sure I’m going to promise anything by way of videos this time. If someone wants to volunteer their talents in that area, send me an email, but it’s clear I shouldn’t put myself in that position again. It’s enough work getting the conference off without a hitch. That also means that if you want the benefit of the conference, you need to plan on attending in person.

I think I’ll have the details nailed down by the end of the week and then we can open registration. There’s a decent chance that we’ll be back at Disney again, if only because that’s a known quantity and the prices haven’t gone up too much. Same deal as before with ticket prices in that I envision cutting last year’s attendees a break if they re-register for MILOfest 2011, then Early Bird, General Admission, and Last Chance. The price might go up just a bit as I’m trying to get us some inexpensive wi-fi for the room.

Oh, about the conference itself, I already have a handful of excellent speakers and topics. I’ll be adding to it over the coming months once I know whether folks can make the dates and the location. I’m fortunate enough to know people that will travel anywhere, and at any time, for MILOfest. I can’t tell you how much that means to me.

If you have any questions, leave them in the comments section, and I’ll try to answer them all.

Thanks for your patience —

Victor Medina