A lot do
But too expensive so isn’t going to happen in the near term (this year and not next)
Hence why I was fishing around for “is there something in between nothing and XDC” that might serve as a starting point
I would certainly help to promote and offer advice to anybody who would like to arrange a Xojo event. I have arranged 4 Xojo events in the UK. It is a LOT of work to put a decent event together. The events I have arranged get 25-28 attendees and on the whole they have gone well and have been appreciated by the attendees. The feedback has been very positive. It is possible to video chat with Xojo staff and get video demos, they do not have to be there in person. Geoff Perlman and Paul LeFebvre have done video chats and demos and these have been very popular. And a general Q&A session between everyone allows people to get their specific questions answered.
The main things people want from an event is to learn new Xojo-related tips and techniques and to meet other Xojo people. Networking is important, you may be able to get help with your own work, help others, and maybe get paid work as a result. A meet-up without technical presentations from experienced developers will never be well attended. And personally I would not want to pay to go to an event where I have to spend an day or so coding with people I don’t know to solve a problem that I don’t have in real life, I would much rather learn from technical presentations or a training day on a specific advanced topic.
I love the idea of a Euro XDC, perhaps in Germany as that is the largest Xojo market outside of the USA, but I know for sure that many developers from the UK would likely not go due to time and cost - many people who have contacted me that live in London say that Birmingham is too far to go!
There is a demand for an event in the UK and I am thinking of doing another event in the UK in November! If anyone wants to offer to help or do a presentation, or suggest topics of interest, you can get in touch with me via eric@mactasks.com.
@Emile Schwarz you have some good ideas there!
Education, learning new methods and procedures. Meeting some people like Geoff Perlman, Norman Palardy, Bob Keeney, Kern Tekinay, Paul Lefebvre. Nice and easy, nothing difficult or expensive.
Just exchanging ideas, meeting each other and enjoying each others company in the real world.
Keep it simple, simplicity is beautiful.
That sounds good. Looking forward to visit Birmingham 
definitely not us… we love going up to Birmingham around the same time as the christmas market. We learn a lot from all these events and putting the things we learn into our product.
When I was at school (around 14_15 y/o), we had a major snow event in February (Cannes, France south-east).
People like me who lived 15Km from school goes there when people lived near stayed at home ;-
The incentive was too low
Now that I used that word, I think this is the main key: incentive.
opq: Xojo Events: What Do We Want ?
ma: A good incentive, not too costly, not necessarily with Xojo full staff (I stay with what I wrote earlier *).
- Ive gone many times at Apple Expo (THE major Apple Event in the 80s, 90s, etc.) and some other User Groups, and all the time I was asking (myself and othe Apple Employees) what do we want to see if we go as visitor ?
The answers were always: thinks people do not saw elsewhere. As an example, one year we displayed Lego Technic with a Macintosh command (people never think this was even possible, available on Macintosh).
That is why I like this conversation: ideas exchanges and, maybe, future implementation.
I was at the very first Apple Expo in Paris as a journalist, then in the late eighties & early nineties as a software publisher. For me it was essentially a showcase for developers/publishers, and the few peripheral vendors. Not to mention the best sales of the year for my boxes.
To the developers who embraced Mac back then, it was the all or nothing chance to make a name for themselves.
I do not think any event around Xojo can resemble that.
Apple Expo did bring a strong sense of community, though, merely by bringing people together. But that is, I guess, what XDC does already.
I was giving my employee/member of a stand who want to have people visiting his stand and remembering (s)he saws interesting stuff there / learned something.
And getting 80,000 visitors in four/five days is a real experience !
I had thought of trying to organise a UK event in Manchester, UK
having spoken to @Eric Gibbon it became obvious that organising an event is not the easiest thing to do
if people wanted to come, (and Eric/ Stuart would help me 
i would be willing to try.
Manchester has a few interesting things to offer of course ;
Its the home of computing, a copy of baby (amongst other industrial revolution machinery ) is available to see in http://www.mosi.org/what-to-do/exhibits.aspx
we have a statue of Alan Turing
i’ve not approached them, but is seems like http://madlab.org.uk/ might be a good place to have a meeting, since it is all about programming, it also has a raspberry pi group comprised of quite a few teachers, which would be interesting, once we get our grubby mits on R3 and it has a very good internet connection available, which is always good.
Manchester also has an international airport, and some of the finest evening entertainment on the face of the earth.
for @Geoff Perlman and the BBQ devotees we KNOW we have the very finest! BBQ Food
rooms are cheap as chips…
sun worshipers need not apply.
[quote=204747:@Russ Lunn]
Manchester also has an international airport[/quote]
Dang …
Have to make at least 2 plane hops to get to Manchester
No non-stops from here to there
Thats not impossible to do though
I’d still like to see group(s) / individuals get started putting “something” together since XDC isn’t going to be in Europe for the foreseeable future - so something in between no conference and xdc would be great
And I’d like to think Xojo would send some people to such an event should it occur
@Norman Palardy i suspect that in order to get something off the ground it would need a commitment from Xojo.
you don’t need to come!, but if i go and see the folks at matlab (which is a couple of miles away) and you could do some video conference and talk about the benefit to education and schools, i think it might be good. especially once the raspberry pi stuff is out because they definitely have a thing teaching the teachers going on. if that code could then be transferred to web/desktop/x-platform then, well, its all good isn’t it!
I helped organize the ARBP Boulder & Atlanta conferences (as I was not working here then)
IF I were you I’d start by deciding all the relevant W’s
- who should come (who do you WANT to attract to some?)
- what kind of content do you want (seminars, hands on “teach me how sessions”, etc)
- when are you planning it for (this will in part be driven by what you want for content)
- where (taking into consideration who comes)
And find co-conspirators to help spread the work load out and spread the word
Then find a location that accommodates that goal - it may be a hotel with conference facilities, it may be something else.
Depending on what you decide that will drive timetables
A quick get together to chat in a restaurant takes almost no organizing - a conference like XDC a lot and so requires more lead time to get proposals for presentations, drafts etc and also organizing things like conference materials for attendees to take away etc
Trust me I get the amount of work that goes into a conference & am glad this is dana’s job not mine 
And during the process I’d chat with Geoff & Dana to see if the timelines & event are going to be something that Xojo could make a commitment to sending someone or if it would be something they’d want to do by video chat etc
All you can do is try - and ask
That is what the ARBP did for Atlanta - and Geoff came
Then … keep staying in this places.
There is no need to find new places every year.
I will not attend with this high hotels rates (like 2015).
Remember, that the 2014 XDC was sold out, so no need for excuses, that companies will not approve employees going to Las Vegas.
So go to Las Vegas or Orlando with the XDC 2016 !
Thank you. If you (or anyone else) has questions about Mandrill and using it with Xojo, please let me know. I know more than I ever wanted to.
I agree and the costs get very expensive very quickly. I rather have lower cost for the event and let people provide their own beverages (adult or non-adult).
I agree. lets not change XDC as it is a great conference as-is. And I know @Dana Brown is working hard at making it even better.
But regional mini-conferences would be nice. As long as the pricing/ROI is good.
From NL direct flight in just one hour to Manchester. Would be great to meet some Xojo folks there this autumn.
Xoxo says it’s too expensive to come to europe.
others say, it’s too expensive (and time consuming) to come to US.
so what?
This is a very poor point of view especially from xojo.
If the cost for a simple conference with 2 experts from xojo is too much then i have to think about how long xojo stays in the market.
[quote=205692:@Hans-Jürgen Müller]Xoxo says it’s too expensive to come to europe.
others say, it’s too expensive (and time consuming) to come to US.
so what?
This is a very poor point of view especially from xojo.
If the cost for a simple conference with 2 experts from xojo is too much then i have to think about how long xojo stays in the market.[/quote]
The XDC conference will all Xojo staff present won’t be in Europe - at least not any time soon - as it’s too expensive.
There’s no conference that would include only a couple engineers being planned - by anyone.
Thats what i said. The responsibility for planning this is up to you.
If i understand the comments in this thread correctly: It would be enough to send 2 competend people to europe to answer questions and bring the comments and proposals back to you.