Bitcoin Conference 2012- London 15-16 Sept | ANNOUNCEMENT sponsorship available!

[disclaimer201]

Who simply decided for London just now? I thought it'd be in Berlin this year? November/December is quite late. The only reason to do it then is b/c of the location and the olympics. London is too expensive if you're not a member of the Rothschild family or in a position of mainstream economics. I thought bitcoin was for everyman/woman?

What if we will have the problem with those tainted coins and a huge mess on who is accepting what percentage of taintedness long before the bitcoin community can discuss it in person? Perhaps December will be too late then? There are some urgent questions that need to be discussed rather sooner than later, on a wider base of members if possible.

[BitPay Business Solutions]

James,

we are interested in sponsoring the conference and speaking as well.  did you get my email?

Tony

[Nefario]

James,

we are interested in sponsoring the conference and speaking as well.  did you get my email?

Tony

Hey Tony, got the mail (found it in spam), replied.

[muyuu]

Who simply decided for London just now? I thought it'd be in Berlin this year? November/December is quite late. The only reason to do it then is b/c of the location and the olympics. London is too expensive if you're not a member of the Rothschild family or in a position of mainstream economics. I thought bitcoin was for everyman/woman

At the end of the day it's the speakers who make this decision. I guess you can organise another conference in Berlin, but maybe the speakers who are going to talk in London won't do both.

[flix]

London is great.

Please give some indication about the date.

[disclaimer201]

Who simply decided for London just now? I thought it'd be in Berlin this year? November/December is quite late. The only reason to do it then is b/c of the location and the olympics. London is too expensive if you're not a member of the Rothschild family or in a position of mainstream economics. I thought bitcoin was for everyman/woman

At the end of the day it's the speakers who make this decision. I guess you can organise another conference in Berlin, but maybe the speakers who are going to talk in London won't do both.

Good point. Speakers are more important than audience.

[Raoul Duke]

Who simply decided for London just now? I thought it'd be in Berlin this year? November/December is quite late. The only reason to do it then is b/c of the location and the olympics. London is too expensive if you're not a member of the Rothschild family or in a position of mainstream economics. I thought bitcoin was for everyman/woman

At the end of the day it's the speakers who make this decision. I guess you can organise another conference in Berlin, but maybe the speakers who are going to talk in London won't do both.

Good point. Speakers are more important than audience.

Is my sarcasm detector broken?

[willphase]

Interested. Subscribing to the thread. Keen to hear a rough date as soon as possible.

Will

[realnowhereman]

Can I suggest getting in touch with the Adam Smith Institute.  They are certainly a libertarian organisation; but concentrate on the economic side (as you would guess given their title).

Their blog posts suggest they are always involved in some sort of small meeting or other.  Getting them involved (maybe even getting someone to speak) might also get you some good publicity with the London free-market crowd.

[Inaba]

We're planning a conference, not a group holiday, if you want sun then go for the Costa Del Sol, the last time someone tried for a sunny place for a bitcoin conference we almost ended up with Bruce Wagners Pattaya.

London is the financial hub of the world (larger than the rest of the EU's financial sectors combined), a world travel hub, packed with media, and where the majority of our speakers are based.

Yeah, good work.  Why not alienate a portion of your attending audience.  That's the way to win acceptance! 

So the last time someone tried for a sunny place they fucked up and couldn't get their shit together, so that's the reason to hold it in travel destination that no one wants to go to due to the time of year.  Right... silly me.

There's a reason many, many big conferences have their destination in places that people want to go to: increased attendance.  You'd do well to take a lesson from the most successful conferences and not just do your own thing because you *think* doesn't matter.  Learn from other peoples experience instead.

[genjix]

We are in London = higher quality conference. That's all that matters to me. Build the highest quality schedule and topics. Bring together the best and brightest.

Our organisation's (Bitcoin Consultancy) mission statement is:
"In April 2011, we formed this consultancy as a collaborative effort to take bitcoin outside the world of tech geeks and hobbyists into the real world."

This conference's mandate is:
"To bring bitcoin to a global financial centre, and be a turning point bringing bitcoin to the fore of the mainstream. It is here that bitcoin will leave its perilous infancy, as the new world briefly meets the old before displacing it."

If you notice the actions of our group, everything is aligned with these statements. From our outreach (Bitcoin Media), to the exchange (Intersango to spread BTC) and our development (libbitcoin to enable people to build lots of bitcoin applications). This conference will be no different, and you will see it designed accordingly. We want to grow bitcoin through the vehicle of this conference. It will be a serious pensive arrangement with deep discussions, not a fun-community weekend piss-up.

London is our avenue for doing that. For building the best conference, we are here and have our support network here. It is where we can best perform. Berlin is foreign unfamiliar non-English speaking territory for us. It's not like to create a conference you just rent out a church hall and throw some plastic chairs in. There is a lot of micromanagement and behind the scenes organisation.

And saying you boycott us until you get a sunnier location of your choosing, when this is our highest quality offering is simply childish and ungrateful. I'm not getting paid working 14 hour days, and the rest of my group is also overworked and underpaid. We are in this because we are lovers of bitcoin (and opensource in my case ). And you want to punish us? Come on, I know you're above that as a human being.

[disclaimer201]

We are in London = higher quality conference. That's all that matters to me. Build the highest quality schedule and topics. Bring together the best and brightest.

Our organisation's (Bitcoin Consultancy) mission statement is:
"In April 2011, we formed this consultancy as a collaborative effort to take bitcoin outside the world of tech geeks and hobbyists into the real world."

This conference's mandate is:
"To bring bitcoin to a global financial centre, and be a turning point bringing bitcoin to the fore of the mainstream. It is here that bitcoin will leave its perilous infancy, as the new world briefly meets the old before displacing it."

If you notice the actions of our group, everything is aligned with these statements. From our outreach (Bitcoin Media), to the exchange (Intersango to spread BTC) and our development (libbitcoin to enable people to build lots of bitcoin applications). This conference will be no different, and you will see it designed accordingly. We want to grow bitcoin through the vehicle of this conference. It will be a serious pensive arrangement with deep discussions, not a fun-community weekend piss-up.

London is our avenue for doing that. For building the best conference, we are here and have our support network here. It is where we can best perform. Berlin is foreign unfamiliar non-English speaking territory for us. It's not like to create a conference you just rent out a church hall and throw some plastic chairs in. There is a lot of micromanagement and behind the scenes organisation.

And saying you want to punish us with a boycott until you get a sunnier location of your choosing, when this is our highest quality offering is simply childish and ungrateful. I'm not getting paid working 14 hour days, and the rest of my group is also overworked and underpaid. We are in this because we are lovers of bitcoin (and opensource in my case ).

Did I miss something? When did Bitcoin become highjacked by self-proclaimed consultants that seem to know what's best for BTC's promotion?

Your mandate sounds a bit deterministic, even dogmatic. You admit that it is doability and not other factors that limit your venue location to London. Most people in Berlin speak fluent English, let alone many other languages. I don't buy the altruistic reasoning of unpaid volunatary service to the community, neither from you nor anyone.

And punishment? If people cannot attend for obvious financial reasons you have more or less limited the audience to an elite. It's not about punishment, it's about not being able to attend. Some places are more easily attendable than others.

[Technomage]

I really don't understand what the problem is with the location, I preferred Berlin but London is almost as good. Any significantly more southern location would increase costs, not decrease them. Flight cost goes way up from any central or northern European location. I live in Finland so flying to either London or Berlin is cheap and when we're talking about a weekend visit that is usually the largest cost. Flying to London is actually cheaper because Ryanair doesn't fly from Finland to Berlin.

London is a major business hub and apparently it's a better location for many of the speakers so it makes sense. Anyone coming from the US will also find it easier to come to London than basically anywhere else in Europe.

I'm not coming there to enjoy the weather, I can go south for a longer vacation if I want warm weather. In that case the higher cost for flight tickets is also acceptable because I'm there for a few weeks. In this case we're talking about a Bitcoin enthusiast/business meeting which is one weekend, I certainly don't want to fly to Canary Islands because the flight cost goes significantly up.

Taking everything into account I would probably prefer southern Spain, southern Italy or Greece or Malta for a European winter conference but I understand the business side of things. Comparing London/Berlin weather is useless, they are very similar. Overall I'm completely fine with it, it's a serious conference not a vacation event so London is fine.

[molecular]

Who simply decided for London just now? I thought it'd be in Berlin this year? November/December is quite late. The only reason to do it then is b/c of the location and the olympics. London is too expensive if you're not a member of the Rothschild family or in a position of mainstream economics. I thought bitcoin was for everyman/woman?

What if we will have the problem with those tainted coins and a huge mess on who is accepting what percentage of taintedness long before the bitcoin community can discuss it in person? Perhaps December will be too late then? There are some urgent questions that need to be discussed rather sooner than later, on a wider base of members if possible.

The organizers don't have a monopoly on bitcoin conferences. Anyone could organize an earlier conference at some different place, maybe with a different angle and better weather . Put enough time between them, invite other speakers, no harm done.

[Yankee (BitInstant)]

Can we all stop hating on Genjix and his team.

They chose London, its gonna be an awesome conference, if you don't like it don't go!

I would have liked Berlin, but who cares, we don't get everything we want in life.

Looking forward!!!

[Inaba]

While I realize my little tiny vote doesn't count, but yes, I will not attend in London in December.  I'm sure I'm not the only one.  

Regardless, when people are going to travel, if they can combine a business trip with a vacation, you'll get a much larger uptake on attendance.  It's why large medical conferences (the ones I'm most familiar with) are held in tropical locations - you can take a vacation and write it off. I mean, I know a 2000+ attendee conferences are small peanuts compared to a Bitcoin conference, but what can you do.  With the Bitcoin conference in London in December, I would not classify that as a vacation under any circumstance, so if I were to want to take  a vacation a the end of the year, like I am planning, it sure as hell isn't going to be there, which means I have to decide between the two.  I can guarantee you Hawaii, Costa Del Sol, Monaco, etc... are going to be far, far higher on my list than London in December, haha.

I'm sure one of those places will have a medical or IT conference sometime around the end of the year, and I can use that as the tax write off instead of a Bitcoin trip.

I'm not hating on anyone BTW, except for perhaps Nefarious' tone, but other than that, I'm merely stating that at least for me, I won't be attending due to location and time of year.  I have no problem with it being in London, I have a problem with it being in London in December.  I would be all over it if it were in late spring or early summer in London. Even probably late summer, but I realize the Olympics puts a dent in that plan.

[Donald_Norman]

Both London and Berlin are excellent locations to hold the conference and there are many people on both sides arguing for London and Berlin.

In London, December's average LOW temperature is HIGHER then Berlin's Daily Mean. London's average HIGH is almost 2x that of Berlin's (wikipedia Climate charts for the cities)

Obviously we can pick only one city. Obviously we cannot throw a conference in both locations as to throw a quality conference takes a huge amount of effort. After long thorough thought we realized London was the by far best place we could throw the best conference.

We can guarantee a much wider audience which will make it a much more successful event (last year's conference, while being a great conference was a financial loss to us and while we love our projects we cannot continue at a loss - we still have free projects like libbitcoin which are a huge cost in terms of opportunity cost). In London, we can certainly bring a much better quality of speakers also which of course will increase attendance and of course the quality. We can organize things in a lot more of an economic way because we are based out of London.

Even for those traveling cheaply we are looking to provide low cost options in London. While we don't have anything concrete yet, we are looking at the ability for a venue (most likely not the conference venue) to allow for people to stay overnight at incredibly affordable rates.

We are hoping for a conference date earlier than December however venue costs will be our largest overhead cost (aside from our team's man hours for the next few months) and we must take venue costs into consideration. However, all things being equal (or close to equal) we will have the conference as earliest as possible.

We understand that if we have the conference in London some people who prefer Berlin will not be able to join us. We also realize if the conference is in Berlin there are many people who live in the UK or would travel to the UK that would not attend in Berlin. While making a choice like this is hard, the aforementioned variables make a London conference better quality and value for the majority of people. We hope to have information in the next 2 months as to if we can arrange for more affordable accommodations in London (something we will likely be able to arrange.)

[rjk]

Both London and Berlin are excellent locations to hold the conference and there are many people on both sides arguing for London and Berlin.

In London, December's average LOW temperature is HIGHER then Berlin's Daily Mean. London's average HIGH is almost 2x that of Berlin's (wikipedia Climate charts for the cities)

It is possible for a city to be cold (Berlin) while not being dreary and wet and clammy (London). In any case, good luck with the conference.

[muyuu]

Why don't the Berliners organise something else earlier? I'd go to that as well. Actually I plan to visit Berlin anyway, and I live in London.

It's not like you guys can't have talks and conferences in Berlin just because this particular event will happen in London.

BTW, I missed the hackspace talk

[wareen]

Can we all stop hating on Genjix and his team.

They chose London, its gonna be an awesome conference, if you don't like it don't go!

I would have liked Berlin, but who cares, we don't get everything we want in life.

Looking forward!!!

+1 for each line!