:KaBlooog!

This conference could have been a great experience, except for the fact
that the event organizers (I think Sun Microsystems hired someone to
manage the event, and I don’t know who they were) really fucked up.

I
couldn’t take two days off because I had a lot work to do, so I decided
to attend the second day because the topics to be discussed seemed more
interesting (SOA, openESB, AJAX, etc). Much to my dismay, I didn’t get
any freebie (come to think of it, they’re not really free because we
paid for the event) which they gave in the first day. Not even a
friggin’ ID jacket more my namecard
I learned that they gave away bags, notebooks, pens, shirts, and God
knows what else the day before. By the time the second day was about to
start, there weren’t any item left for them to give away. They even ran
out of ID’s for crying out loud! What’s the fuckin’ deal with that?! I
paid a thousand pesos for the event and I could even get a decent ID or
namecard. And I registered in advance thinking it would save me time
during registration. No more filling out of forms or any other crap.
Apparently their online registration system was useless because I still
had to fill out a personal info sheet, and they still haven’t printed
my namecard. But what really pissed me off was that there were a lot of
participants who got more than one item. Well how about that? I felt I
wasted my hard-earned money.

At least the food was good, and the
speakers were fine. I learned a couple of new things and technologies,
although I don’t think they were worth the money I shelled out,
especially that the slides are available online for free. And there
were a lot of LB people! Kahit saan talaga hahaha!

Lesson learned (especially if this is a Sun Microsystem-sponsored event):
1.
You don’t have to register in advance for an event like that, you can
register onsite. It doesn’t make any difference (except of course if
there is an early bird discount).
2. If you can’t attend every day of the conference, make sure to attend the first day when they give away freebies/items.
3. If they’re serving foods and drinks make sure you eat as much as you can to get your money’s worth.
4.
If there aren’t much items to giveaway in the event, it probably isn’t
worth the money. Especially if the presentations/notes and/or podcasts
will be available online for free.

So in hindsight, if the event
was for free it would have been worth it, with or without the food and
freebies. But the fact that I had to pay money just to be there and
listen to people talk, and not enjoy the same perks that other
participants got was, well… fucking disappointing.