This year I wont even bother to try to get a ticket (last years it was impossible due to latency). I am in Switzerland and will stay there unfortunately.
What a pitty Google is selling tickets to people/students who only want free stuff instead of long time clients who are also devs.
Are the servers for the I/O registration process definitely in the US only? If so I really have a problem, since I saved up the airmiles and am so ready to go.
Don't make any travel/hotel reservations until you have the I/O ticket reserved, the registration is always a clusterfuck where getting a ticket basically amounts to winning a minor lottery.
Also sometimes they just randomly change the announced date prior to registration (eg. from April to June) for extra "Fuck You" to people who plan ahead.
I don't think it really matters where you're connecting from though, the servers basically just die under the load and you may or may not get lucky by hitting the right load balancer at the right time but where you're coming from and what your latency is doesn't really matter too much. It is a horrible experience for people in California just as it is a horrible experience for people in Europe.
True that, I know six people in the US and myself all tried the moment sales opened last time and none of us got in. Lets hope Google rents all of Moscone instead of just Moscone West this year. Java ONE handles much bigger crowds than they do, making Google look like amateurs.
I've never been to Google I/O, could you please explain why people go there and what is the main focus of the event. Networking with Googlers? Networking with attendees? Make business with Google? for Googlers keynotes?
I'd like to go, but I am working at a seed stage company and don't have $900 to blow on conference tickets. Sadly, I'm not a student now either. No breaks for poor programmers?
High priced tickets to any tech event kind of bug me. I just don't get it. I've always hated the trend of calling developers "rockstars" and I hate the trend of tech conferences being like rockstar concerts
Supply and demand is a simple process, really. You set tickets to price X and you get 10 times as many people wanting to attend than you have seats. What do you do next year? Lottery? Beauty contest? It's logical to raise the price in such a case. I don't think this is restricted to tech conferences. Unlike rock concerts though, it's hard to imagine Google is trying to actually make money from I/O tickets.
The only problem is that they are giving out products which surpasses the ticket prices.
People (with less money) genuinely interested in the development talks, establishing connections, getting to know fellow developers and have interesting conversations, would be a second rank citizen to the "tech enthusiast" with a lot of money to spend.
:-) Good summary....
It does seem swamped by the swag hunters.
I've found that the I/O Extended event works out well...
They hold them in many countries now, and live stream the keynotes. It's a great atmosphere, and you meet interesting people.
Outside of Extended, the tech talks/firesides should be streamed live via YouTube. It was a bit hit and miss last year... hope it's smoother this time.
Not to agree with GP, but I'm not big on this analogy. It's assuming Google's goal here is to maximise ticket sales, but reaching the developer community is worth much more than cashing in on ticket sales. Google's not in the business of charging high prices for developer education.
I believe Google's trying to recoup most or all of the cost, which must be high if they're subsidising the gadget giveaways.
>High priced tickets to any tech event kind of bug me. I just don't get it. I've always hated the trend of calling developers "rockstars" and I hate the trend of tech conferences being like rockstar concerts
Can't say I'm a fan of the sensationalism either. Would be interested to see them make one more like an academic conference than a trade show expo.
This is actually pretty cheap considering the event. NAB, not strictly a "tech" event, but still geeky, is $1200+ and O'Reilly's Fluent conference (JavaScript) is $1200-2000, depending on when you register.
Conferences usually have a "Volunteer Coordinator" role, and if you can find that person then you can usually get in free by doing some easy work before/after/during the conference. I have attended several (4?) conferences this way without having to pay the fee. However, for Google I/O or Java One, I don't think they take volunteers.
I've gone to I/O every year. They usually set aside presale tickets for regular attendees, so we don't get locked-out if they sell out.
We're only a week away from general sales, but I haven't seen any information about I/ON registration yet. I hope they're still giving early access to tickets for I/ONs this year.
https://developers.google.com/events/io/help#reg_ions
"I/ONs have attended at least five of the following as a paid attendee: Google I/O 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 and the 2007 Google Developer Day in Mountain View. I/ONs receive a limited time opportunity to purchase a ticket during pre-sale registration. Eligibility as an I/ON is at Google's discretion."
I too have been to every I/O, but the only year I ever got dibs on tickets was '10. I believe that '10 attendees who solved the puzzle on the t-shirts they gave out got dibs for '11, but I know of nobody who got dibs for '12.
Hmm I've gone every year (for last three years I only) as well, and haven't gotten an opportunity to early register. Hell I'm even a Glass Explorer that went to the San Francisco Foundry.
Yeah, I was kind of hoping for some sort of early buy-in opportunity for the Glass Explorer group but I guess no such luck (unless they clue us in between now and EOD Tuesday I guess).
I'm going to be bummed if I can't get a ticket and there's a lot of Glass dev content at the conference. I didn't have the time to go to either Foundry event.
I hope they're still giving early access to tickets for I/ONs this year.
And I, and many others, hope they don't. Google I/O became a "why not" conference to go to for those in the area because the freebies outweighed the cost, and it is ridiculous that Google starts to grandfather that in.
"Before" meaning 2008. Every year after they gave out freebies. Further that is irrelevant regardless given that the pre-sales isn't to some sort of "loyal since 2008" group, but rather is whoever happened to get in the prior year. And I believe such pre-sales have only happened for the past two years.
>Further that is irrelevant regardless given that the pre-sales isn't to some sort of "loyal since 2008" group
But there is a presale aimed at exactly this group.
They've had the "I/ON" group (aka "loyal since 2008") since 2010, if I remember correctly. There was no presale but it also took 90 days for the 2010 conference to sell out, so it wasn't like you needed one. The 2010 I/ON group got priority seating at the keynote, a different T-shirt, and some other trinkets.
In 2011 they did presale for I/ONs two weeks prior to general registration, and a presale for other 2010 attendees one week prior to open registration (and only for attendees who paid full price in 2010, not academic discounted tickets).
2012 had just a presale for I/ONs, no early registration at all for 2011 attendees.
For the song one this binds the notes to the arrow keys (in chrome at least): $(document).keydown(function(e){$.map({37:'rectangle1',38:'circle-yellow1',39:'circle-blue1',40:'polygon1'},function(v,k){k!=e.keyCode||$('#'+v).trigger('mousedown')});return false;});
https://developers.google.com/events/io/help#reg_tips "We'll take you to a waiting page while we try to find you a ticket. Expect to be on this page for up to six minutes. On this page, don't refresh your browser or your ticket search will restart."
I believe that's new for this year. 2011 was a total mess as the registration page was just a ColdFusion site run by their event management vendor, and they were clearly used to medical conferences and the like that don't get the same swift response that I/O would get. The registration site served up way more 503 errors than pages.
Last year was better because Google took it in-house, but it was still an F5-fest.
If you've got a staff ID and a paystub I imagine you're good. Definitely bring a paystub if your ID doesn't have validity dates printed on it. A friend works for a university and his ID alone was insufficient as it just had his name and photograph on it; he had to get on his smartphone and call up his paystub on the university HR website.
Also they say they won't let you convert an academic ticket to a full price ticket, so if you quit your job before I/O it sounds like they'll just turn you away at the door for not being eligible.
https://twitter.com/lukegb/status/309438514964099072
var a=ww.mode.modes,i;for(i in a)if("home"!=i){for(var b=a[i].pattern.toString(2);8>b.length;)b="0"+b;console.log(i,b)};
Returns: cat 11100111 space 00101010 pong 10000001 bacon 10010000 simone 11010011 eightbit 01010011 song 11011011 synth 10001000 ascii 01111111 bowling 01110101 rocket 01000101 burger 00111001
(sorry for spoiling it ;D)