One third of RailsConf '07 seats gone!
Posted by David February 02, 2007 @ 10:45 PM
So we had a suspicion that the seats for RailsConf ‘07 would sell fast, but this is ridiculously. A few hours after we’ve opened for registrations that close to more than a third of the seats for the conference would be gone. At this rate we might well sell out the conference even faster than last year.
History repeats itself….
I’ve never done it myself, but aren’t there ways to do market research so that you aren’t surprised by this sort of thing?
I’d attend, if it were in Southern California.
Maybe there need to be more of them.
There’s the ‘Silicon Valley’ Ruby Conference in April, if you’re interested, Jose.
DGM,
That’s funny you asked that question. When I presented our service (http://inklingmarkets.com) at the conference last year, I told Chad Fowler, “Hey please feel free to use this thing to help predict how many seats you’ll sell next year”. He replied, “We already know how many seats we’ll sell next year”. :)
Selling out might actually be a good strategy for a bunch of reasons. First one off the top of my head: the threat of it, probably encourages people to sign up much faster than they’d do otherwise. If you let people procrastinate on signing up for this maybe you wouldn’t end up selling out?
I have absolutely no idea :)
Selling out is a good strategy, though admitedly not a popular one with those that want seats and don’t get them.
The pace of registrations seems just about right to me though. Surely those that just have-to-go have gotten their tickets by now and no one should be able to complain that they were shut out.
Every business owner wants to offer something that is coveted and none wants to be left with unsold inventory. That’s one reason popular restaurants don’t just add more tables and waitstaff, for example. A two hour wait for a table or a reservation made a month ahead of time surely means it is a great place to eat, right? What would you think of a place that used to have a two hour wait and suddenly you walk up at peak time and they say “sure, we have a table right now for you”. You might wonder what happened to all their customers, right? (Unless you are DHH, then you just realize you are getting priority treatment because you are a hacker rock-star :)
ARG! If I don’t make it to this one I’m going to have to go for RailsConf Europe.. :(