Bitcoin Forum

This is the conference today. It looks like MAYBE 100-200 people showed up...

I took part in advertising the 2013 4/20 rally, and even with the Cannabis Cup (from Amasterdam) in town as a competitor, we were able to attract an audience of over 50,000 at once and over 200,000 people throughout the day.

Someone PLEASE give me heads up about the next big Bitcoin event so that I can get some attendance. I don't even need to be paid, I just believe in Bitcoin and I really think more people should be showing up than that and I bet I could add a few hundred to the audience if I had a 3-6 month heads up.

And I kinda think Bitcoin needs a carnival...

You're confusing yourself.

That's one room of the several they had (4 session track rooms, the hackathon room, and the main floor with the vendor booths, food area, and main stage). There were about 2,000 participants who paid, not the 100 or so you see in the picture below. (some sessions were sparsely populated, while others, like Gavin's were standing room only).

Oh, and they each paid $300-$350 to be there. Did all 200K of yours pay that much? It was probably free, right?

You're comparing apples to oranges.

I didn't know that they had more than one room. But I could still help attendance.

Why did they make people pay? That doesn't make sense.
And yeah, the rally was free. But now that I know it costs money to get in, I would offer money (to buy tickets) or tickets in a contest and that alone would boost attendance.

And I'm not comparing apples to oranges. I'm comparing Apples to Smaller more expensive apples.

$300 attendance fee was probably just about right. A conference of this type is intended to build up the network of the bitcoiner community, get business people talking to each other about ideas and projects, problems and solutions in bit-commerce. Concrete business deals would get struck.

A cheap event would allow in many people who are interested but never plan to do anything constructive. They would learn, but that can be done remotely, online.

Signal not noise!

Someone had to pay for it! Bitcoin is not owned by a company. I was there and paid $300. and flew from Australia to be there. There was food alcohol giveaways and heaps more. This was a great event and I am very happy with the price.
The turnout was massive there where thousands there. I will be back again next year also.
Just a quick question for you, What are your motives here?

I think free and VIP options would be best. Maybe brochures and stuff like that at stalls for free people, then VIP gets the seminars and a VIP room or something.

Then you get the best of both worlds. Some people can come by just to see what bitcoin is, while some come to collaborate with others and learn deeper concepts.

My motives are to make the next event awesome. Then I want to go to it :)

Sorry buddy I'm just wound up by all these ripple guys undercover in the bitcoin community.
It's a good event and yeah you should really try to attend the next one. They did a great job organizing this so well. I had a ball and heard a lot of great stuff.

I wish I had hear about it before today... That's another reason, I think there should be more awareness next time.

But I heard about the bitcoin seasteading and political zone stuff, and that sounds like AMAZING progress.

Too many non-movers undermines the point of the conference. You need the right number of the right kind of people for the conference to be a success...and success is not measured in # of attendees or ฿ collected in conference fees. The goal of the Bitcoin Foundation holding the conference is to advance Bitcoin and hopefully not lose money on the event. In fact, if I recall correctly, in the early days there was talk of "hoping to break even."

I think inviting people to come for free would be a great more to advance bitcoin, and having stalls outside that have contests for preloaded USB wallets, and maybe a computer to make a wallet and get a free alt coin. Then brochures and places to put yourself on email lists.

Then have the "movers" in the paid area.

And selling stall space would help to break even, or even better.

$300. is a small price to pay for the information food drinks and open bar's all included. It is also a good price considering attending is putting you at the events that are set to revolutionize money for the world. You cannot say it wasn't justified if you never showed up. 

You aren't listening. I never said take away the 300$ cover charge, I said put a free version outside.

And earn extra money by selling stall space in the free area.

Yeah I hear that but I think the stalls probably paid already. It's an Idea that could be considered but I don't think may stall holders would want to be outside with the people who don't want to spend any money to get in. I think you should organize your own bitcoin festival or market. rather than a conference

In that case it would just be extra stalls. And that's not true, stalls just want people to be there and interested, they don't care if people spent money to get in. I've been a part of a few events, some free some half and half.

And I definitely plan on doing my own stuff when I get some money, but I'm probably going to be more Devcoin oriented since I'm a writer & video maker.

And I plan on going to bitcoin events before making my own.

Market research bro it comes at a cost sometimes. All I'm saying here anyway From my experience of being at the event is it was promoted well, it was catered well and the topics where great. It was also held in the tech hub of the world. I don't think someone who didn't go can comment on how it wasn't what he wanted it to be.

You seem to be hearing only what you want to hear.
I never said that what they had was a problem, I suggested ways to make I better for bitcoin.

Actually that was 1 of about 4 rooms total.

I hear that bout 1100 users registered and showed up.

I was there, I seen it with my own eyes.

The $300 fee was worth it.

Earlier this year I was bashing the conference on this. I apologize as the conference had exceeded my expectations and changed my outlook on the community as a whole.

It is a lot bigger than you can imagine.  :D

Glad to hear it was so awesome.

Not only is it good to hear it was worth it, a conference being worth $300 (and apparently abundantly so) is telling about the value of Bitcoin itself!

Yeah, sorry. My mistake. Sorry, I didn't hear anything about the conference until today, so I was a little misinformed.

Working on Starting a Bitcoin town here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=216139.0

When I heard that registration was going to cost $300 or the BTC equivalent, I agonized over it before finally deciding not to go. For me, the cost of travelling there was going to double the expense, not to mention food, lodging, taking time off my "day job", time away from my family, etc.

Then I received an email from Lindsay inviting me to speak as part of the "lightning sessions." I mentioned it to my wife and she encouraged me to go. That was the tipping point. I was confident there would be plenty of individuals I had only met online and that ideas and optimistic energy would saturate the place. The contacts alone would be well worth the $300.

When I was finally in the middle of it, I knew that I had made the right decision. Every person I met had interesting ideas or stories, had either business plans or money to invest, was either already contributing to the betterment of the Bitcoin community or was using the underlying ideas behind it to attack some other issue in new and exciting ways. I also can't stress how much positive energy there was. I heard debates but no shouting matches; constructive criticisms but no outright attacks; honest, penetrating questions but no avoidance tactics. I may have just been lucky in the people I interacted with but it seemed that even the most skeptical had open minds and even the most fervent had well-considered arguments and facts to back them up.

And I was right: The business cards I gathered are worth the price of admission in and of themselves.