The Death of CFUnited - What it Means to the ColdFusion Community

Today the ColdFusion community learned that its longstanding flagship conference, CFUnited, will be no more. I wanted to share my own perspective on this, especially given that the naysayers are already out there with posts bemoaning how this is a further sign of the Apocolypse. Being both a regular speaker at events like CFUnited , a track chair for this year's CFUnited and a conference organizer for RIA Unleashed I think I have a unique perspective - but I also want to get feedback from the community regarding the way forward.

What's Hurting the Big Conferences?
While no specifics were given as to why CFUnited is ending, they are fairly easy to assume. While last year was arguably the best CFUnited ever (certainly the best I ever attended), it suffered heavily from a tough economy that affected a whole slew of big events, not just CFUnited. I know from both being an event organizer and knowing many others who do the same, last year saw a drop in both attendance and sponsorship of these big marquee events. The truth of the matter is that running these big conferences tends to be a labor of love as they are, generally speaking, not huge money makers. Only certain venues can accomodate a crowd the size of CFUnited's and they tend to be pricey. Add to that the cost of food (which is outrageously expensive), of speaker rooms, of the attendee swag (t-shirts and etc), and then multiply some of these by 3-4 days and you can easily see how expensive a conference can become. The margin on these big events is small, so a slight downtick in both attendance and sponsorship can quickly break the bank (especially since you plan and commit based guesstimates relying on history). Honestly, this is why I personally started small with RIA Unleashed (firstly as Flex Camp Boston), grew to the 2-day format this year and don't plan on adding more days - big conferences require big risks but without the potential for big payoffs.

Anyway, all that speculation aside, my guess is that, while my understanding is that this year registration and sponsorship were going well based upon revised estimates of attendance and cost from last year's results, the lack of payoff versus the effort/risk finally caught up with the event after all these years. Many major events like Adobe MAX (though I have no specifics about the finances of that event) tend to lose money, in fact, despite the high ticket price. In fact, I suspect this is partly why many of the successful event companies I have been keeping an eye on personally are focused on narrower, shorter and smaller events at unconventional venues (take Carsonified for instance).

What Does this Mean for ColdFusion?
While this feels like a big blow for ColdFusion, as I explain above, this is really about the economics of running marquee conferences. However, it affords another opportunity for those who look for opportunities to proclaim the death of ColdFusion, yet again. Personally, I don't even like to get involved in those useless debates.

What Should the ColdFusion Community do Going Forward?
Firstly, if you can, get yourself to the last CFUnited as I expect this bad news will actually mean it'll be an even better time as I've already heard from many people that they are reconsidering attending to be there for the very last one. However (and I know I have an interest in this but...) we should remember the other community events that are out there like RIA Unleashed and NCDevCon which both have a good deal of ColdFusion content. While I don't blame the community necessarily for CFUnited dying, I do think that if all the people who clearly cared about the event after it's death was announced had showed up last year, we may not be in this position. So, while the economics of RIA Unleashed and NCDevCon are generally different than a marquee conference, they still cannot exist without the support of the community. In fact, both events are so inexpensive and also shorter, you really could make it to both each year! (but now you're seeing the promoter in me).

Does the ColdFusion Community Need a Marquee event?
While RIA Unleashed and NCDevCon are great events, neither is a) exclusively focused on CF or b) big enough to currently take the torch from CFUnited.  CF.Objective is another great event but tends to be focused on the advanced/enterprise ColdFusion developer community meaning its audience (at the moment) is a little more niche. Personally, I am very torn on this question. I think its great to have an event like CFUnited that gets both the well-known developers and the one's not so well known but doing amazing stuff (just without a blog to talk about it) together - it brings advanced CF people and beginner CF people and everyone in between. I can't go through all the people I met at CFUnited's past who told me about some really impressive, cutting-edge work they were doing, none of which was being openly discussed on blogs or Twitter but all of which was pushing the limits of the language. These things, I will definitely miss should another marquee event not take CFUnited's place.

Nonetheless, these big events are huge and expensive and really complex to plan, as I discussed earlier. The risks often outweight the reward from a business perspective. Part of me would almost rather see a number of community events rise in place of CFUnited that could draw people who may not have attended an event due to the high cost of travel, hotel and conference fees. Perhaps, 5 or 6 regional events like RIA Unleashed, NCDevCon or D2WC could help broaden community involvement in places outside DC.

I'm not sure where we should go and would love to hear your thoughts. I do know that whatever takes the place of CFUnited, I am here, ready and willing to lend a hand in helping to get it done.

Nice blog post!

Realistically, I think only cf.Objective() could take up the "marquee" mantel but I'm not sure whether it should since, as you so eloquently lay out: large conferences cost considerably more money and represent a lot more risk.

As I said on Terry's blog, echoing Adam's comment on Twitter, I think this is just the end of one era and the start of a new one, as the CF community continues to evolve and grow...

Another point Brian, is that a large conference needs something to sell, not just the next year's conference. Adobe invests in MAX as a marketing event for products and what not. Conferences almost never make a huge profit. CFUnited was the only CF conference for a while and it got bigger and bigger. Then more expensive. Then more demanding. Etc. It got to a point where we were taking too big of a risk and when you plan for large event to fit a large audience and the numbers don't come around, you make a loss and we didn't have the financial backing to support it.

I commend Michael for making the decision. I know it was hard. I dedicate my career to him allowing me to carry out my vision. He didn't have to do that and he didn't have to care but he did.

Going forward, not sure it is time for another big event yet. It is too much risk. You need a large company with a big pocket to take the risk. And the amount of marketing, accounting, and organizing it takes to do something like this is hard to start from scratch.

For now I'm going to help you and other organizers with any advise I have.

Anyways. Good luck with RIA Unleashed!!!

Amen to all of the above. Change is GOOD! Evolution necessarily requires the extinction of some in order to make way for the new. And when one species (or mega conference) disappears, the void never remains vacant; the momentum of the biosphere (CF community) will not permit it! We have already been seeing the new seedlings for the past few years that were just waiting for a clearing in the canopy to appear. Now that it has, they and other new seedlings can and will fulfill the needs that had been met by the once mighty CFUnited.
I know, somewhat a dramatic analogy. But it clearly illustrates to me that this is all just part of the natural process and, if anything, is as positive as it is negative.

I think you hit the nail on the head, Brian. Nice post. I wish I could attend this year, but it's not going to happen. I'll miss the party. However, it won't be the last one.

I hope to make it out to RIA Unleashed one of these years, although it probably won't be this year.

Clarification: It won't be the last party, though it will be the last CFUnited. :(

Great post, as usual, Brian. I agree that the landscape is changing, and think that that is both a good thing and inevitable. It's pretty obvious that one should question the motivation of anyone looking to turn this into FUD fodder.

I find your post particularly interesting as I have, for some time, been considering trying to put on a short CF focussed conference in my home town of Toronto. I think it would add some geographic diversity to the conference circuit and would give folks a chance to see this wonderful city. I'm just not sure how many of my brothers and sisters to the south would make the trip up here (passport in hand).

I would have to wonder if cf.Objective() is already facing big conference expense concerns. The 2010 registration fee for cf.O was $799 (early)/$899 (regular) for 3 days. CFUnited ranges from $699 to $1049 for 3 days. Add in travel and lodging and most attendees are looking at close to $2000 for either one.

I don't know how attendance has been at cf.O the past couple of years, but I would think the recession and limited travel budgets of potential attendees are being watched closely by the organizers there too.

cf.Objective() has been stable at the same attendance for the past two conferences, it was down from the 2008 number, but the same as 2007. (2006 was the first year.)

For the 2010 conference we did raise our rates to make sure that they conference was in the black even if we reach minimum numbers. We also increased the number of discounts we offer and the amount of those discounts in many cases doubled from the year before.

cf.Objective is very price conscious. Our biggest expense is the Food and Beverage costs (That can of soda at the breaks costs $5.00 in Minnesota), then AV costs including the wireless internet and then the Housing costs for speakers. We play hard ball with our providers to keep the cost of the conference as low as possible. We built this year's conference on a average $1600 total cost for out of state attendee. (Hotel for 3 nights $506, Conference Fee $799 and Airfare $300).

We are planning for the same number of attendees as last year, but are making sure the venue can hold more attendees if needed. There may be other changes, but at this time we are planing for the same type of conference as last year.

I think you are right that we will not see another marquee event, but I think this will improve attendance numbers at the smaller events and cf.Objective(). I will be attending CFUnited, but will be looking to attend cf.Objective() next year.

I think one of the other reasons not mentioned here, is that there are far more resources online today to learn CF and to dive deep into particular aspects of CF and web development than before. Perhaps more people will be attending the online meetups and local CFUG meetings.

Just my $0.02 :)

This is a rather obvious thing to add, but since I haven't seen it come up in this discussion I'll go ahead and add it.

Yes, there are all sorts of online resources to learn things, from Stack Overflow, to blogs, to webcasts, to what have you. But pure learning isn't the main reason to go to a conference. If it were there would be no need for conferences.

The main reason to go to conferences, for me at any rate, is to get sucked into the exciting exchange of ideas face-to-face and in real time, and this can only happen at conferences. It's one of the major things I'm going to do everything I can to facilitate at OpenCF Summit, because I think it's the absolute #1 reason to attend a conference.

Sure, I learn things from sessions at conferences too, but for the most part what I learn in sessions isn't really anything I couldn't have learned from watching a recording of the same session. Sessions give a conference structure, but sessions aren't what conferences are all about to me.

It's being in the same physical space with a bunch of other people who are all excited about the same things you are that motivates me to attend conferences. The most important things that happen at conferences are in the hallway and bar conversations, the late-night hackfests, the in-person picking of brains of people you respect in a more interactive, less structured way than a simple email, and the kicking off of side projects with like-minded people you meet at conferences.

I get extremely inspired, challenged, and reinvigorated at conferences, and those intangibles are the sorts of things that simply can't happen online.

@Matt Woodward - Maybe we could just all use new iPhones and do Facetime conferences. :)

I agree with you, the idea exchange is priceless. However, for an employee trying to get the funds from his boss, this would be the hardest part to sell, in my opinion.

@Matt - I'm still trying to sell it to my boss. I even offered to pay for air ticket and I have a place to stay, but our business is Real Estate, so you can imagine how short our budget became.