Why Webstock rocks

		By Brenda L in General Published: Tuesday, 03 March 09 - 07:52 PM (GMT +12:00) Last Updated: Tuesday, 03 March 09 - 08:33 PM (GMT +12:00)

The Webstock 09 Conference is all over for another year and the rampantly exuberant blogging, flickring and twittering has settled down again ... til next time.

So why the hype? Why does the web community get so excited about a conference? A conference in Wellington no less, where many attendees don't even get to travel
somewhere exotic?

Well basically, Webstock rocks. It's easily the most well organised, interesting, inspiring and stimulating conference I've been to. The organisers pay attention to every detail.

The speakers are from all over the world; they're experts in their fields, they're big names or big-one-day-soon names, there are no filling-in-the-gaps speakers. There are no sessions you don't want to be at.

The organisers take good care of the speakers, and of the attendees. So the speakers hang around - they're having a good time and they are also attendees. The speakers, who are awesome, go out for drinks and are easy to talk to. They're not all stressed and rushed and wishing they were somewhere else.

You come away from those two days (or more if you do workshops) and feel like you're part of, or have had a taste of, what's going on in the world and what is shaping the world. Like you've had conversations with people that are making things happen.

A few more reasons why it's so cool:

- The prizes for the complex and totally cool trading card game were amazing!

- The swag bags are gorgeous and have great schwag

- Local companies show off fabulous ideas

- The nametags have an agenda that you can read.

- There is free coffee (courtesy of People's coffee)

- There were DJs for the coffee breaks

- The drinks were at the Embassy and the band had no people in it

I really enjoyed Webstock 09. I'd like to congratulate the organisers. They did an awesome job. Again.