Why?

• Why drive/walk/train/etc. from one hotel to the next, missing the evening parties, etc.
• An awesome room rate. Even paying less elsewhere you then have to travel, that sucks.
• The room rate is pretty darn good!
• Why miss out on the fun that happens at the official hotel? late nights at the bar, conversations around the restaurants, and in hallways.
• Meeting up with folks for a drink, etc. without having to “Let me go to my hotel to drop my stuff off” (THAT SUCKS)
• PLUS, we need you to be at the hotel. We have a room block we need to fill. Part of doing business with hotels means filling our room blocks, this keeps the cost of 360|Flex down. Filling rooms gives us discounts on other stuff, that we pass on to you guys.

Go book your room now, heck even if you haven’t bought your ticket (that’d be silly, but still) go get your room before the room block fills up.

Remember the room block price extends 3 days before and after 360|Flex, so you can come early and stay late! (that means you can leave on thursday and not miss the last general session)

While you’re at it, might as well register! Don’t miss out on the east coast’s biggest Flex, AIR, Actionscript conference!

Keynotes

Obviously monday’s keynote will be something to not miss. Not only will Adobe be giving us a peak at what’s new/hot/coming soon, but we’re handing over the mic, and the room to Doug McCune.

Sure we all know Doug from “Cool Shit” at Indianapolis, and plenty of other awesome, if not always child friendly sessions, but he’s also ridiculously smart, and a great speaker (Check out his RIAdventure talk, and tell me it’s not motivating). 360|Flex since the beginning has opened with more staid keynotes. Adobe (Ebay when we’re there) giving more state of the union style talks, previews, etc. I’d like to change that.

While we don’t want to completely move away from that, we do want to start raising the bar in the community, for events. Deepa is awesome, and I hope she come to DC to wow us (Check out her keynote from 360|Flex San Jose, it’s free just put it in the cart), but I think it’d be cool to get the community jazzed about what we do. We’re not stodgy old programmers building dashboards, and Web service front ends. We’re doing cool things! Let’s talk about that! Let’s talk about what isn’t done but is possible. Let’s talk about what isn’t possible and how that’s not stopping us!

360|Flex is first and foremost a community event. Organized by members of the community, supported by the community, and aimed at increasing the size of the Flex developer community. Adobe wants 1mil. Flex Developers, we want to help. We also want 360|Flex (and this I think we’ve succeeded at) to be the place where developers come to get knowledge, experience and face time, with things and people they wouldn’t otherwise. Every tried to find someone you didn’t know personally at MAX, not easy. We want everyone leaving 360|Flex on Wednesday to be so energized, they go back to work Thursday or Friday ready to “Crush It!” Ready to go to their bosses, co-workers, etc and show them the things they learned, the new ways of debugging, the new way to compile large apps faster, etc.

General Sessions

If you were in San jose, you got a taste of this, we had some awesome panels! This time around we’re not doing panels (Not for lack of interest, a lack of submissions, LOL) but rather are doing more themed general sessions. Ben Stucki, will be talking about “The Art of Computer Science”, Chuck Freedman is holding “The Great Framework Debate”, and Antonio Holguin is talking about User Experience and mobile. Mobile is growing! I expect the next 360|Flex to have a much higher AIR for mobile showing, and can’t wait!

We’re more than just coders and designers!

And no, i don’t mean some bastard love child of the two! Devigners, desoders, whatever. I mean, we’re interesting people! To highlight that we’re gonna have more than just Rock Band during the evening one night. Jun, Eric, and Scott AKA the compilers will be performing one night (Still TBD). They’ll also be doing a lunch session, talking about how their band incorporates technology into the sets. It’s rumored (Nothing solid yet) that 22nd Century, band of Adobe Evangelist Duane Nickull will be on site as well, and maybe even a little live DJ action from an old friend :)

I don’t want 360|Flex to turn into a “Festival” there’s enough of those out there, but I do think there’s room for more interesting stuff than what we’ve offered before.

Go register… right now! Do it, click this link, register, and secure your spot. Then go book your hotel, it’ll be THE place to be. Why cab/walk/whatever to another hotel, when you can be in the event hotel. I can’t stress enough how much better an experience it is to be in hotel of the conference.

Go on! Register! See you in DC!

We’re keeping that promise, finally, but it sure ain’t easy! The east coast is expensive, for an event like 360|Flex. We don’t charge a lot to get in, and most hotels costs more than the price of a ticket to 360|Flex. That’s hard to think about, staying at the hotel for the event is more than the event. At least bigger events, it’s even, which makes it less noticable :)

THAT SAID. We’re really close to locking in a hotel that should do nicely for 360|Flex, and still keep to our not breaking the bank mentality. I sure can’t wait to see how an east coast 360|Flex is responded to, it will certainly dictate whether there’s any more… no pressure :)

Stay tuned, the next day or two will see the announcement of time, location, and call for papers. Don’t miss out!

In the meantime, make sure to check out the session videos from 360|Flex San Jose and RIAdvanture. Some truly great stuff there!

Join us this wednesday for the next in our speaker chat series. Kevin will be talking about his session at 360|Flex San Jose, as well as anything else you’d like to hear about. He’s been doing Flex and CF before that for a long time now, and has struck out on his own as an Indie developer/consultant.

The chat starts at 12:00 MST on Feb 3rd. Don’t miss it. Bookmark this link.

If you haven’t gotten your room at the Marriott yet, you should get on that. Space is filling up, and the price for downtown San Jose is tough to beat.

And if for some reason you haven’t registered for 360|Flex yet, you should also get on that. Use this link to register. It’ll help Kevin in our contest for speakers to get an upgraded suite at the hotel!

Don’t miss 360|Flex, it’s everything you’ve heard, and more :)

Why an official hotel that’s not connected to the conference center? For one, the conference center is on eBay’s HQ. They are trying to run a business, not make your beds or pick up your mess. Aside from that obvious reason, we want to keep having fun after we leave eBay. We’re still gonna party at Ebay after the last sessions; However, instead of taking the post functs to someone’s room, we want to take the party to downtown San Jose!

One thing that’s always nice at a conference is bumping into the “superstars”. While it happens a lot at the conference, it’s tough to pull someone aside to buy ‘em a drink to say thanks for contributing to the community. While we (the organizers) may not be the superstars you’re looking for, we will be at the hotel with all the speakers (who are the superstars). If you’re flying all the way to the show to meet and learn from these people, why would you bother staying anywhere else? Yes, it would be silly, especially after you read up on the deal we have for you!

We have a room block of Sunday night thru Tuesday night. We lined up an amazing rate of $99, for you all because we love you so. :) You don’t think we love you? How about this? In addition to the low rate of $99 for a Mariott (read: Not Sleazy 8 or Motel 6, or the Holiday Inn down the street, close but gross), we’ve also negotiated free wi-fi access for everyone’s guest rooms. That alone will save you some additional coin.

Assuming you’re arriving Saturday to take advantage of our awesome Sunday Hands-On training, and staying until Wednesday to make sure you don’t miss the final 4 sessions, which will rock and be worth your staying ’til the end we promise! You’re still only paying about $125 a night when you average the prices. Compared to other hotels in the area, that’s a damn good deal. Saturday night and Wednesday night are a bit beefier on the price because the majority of people just stay Sunday to Wednesday, so that’s what our block is for.

I’m sure you have all been to conferences where there’s the, “Which hotel are you at dialogue?” Then there’s time and effort spent on who will go where and when to meetup, etc. Make it easier on yourselves and sure to be newfound friends. Just stay at the Mariott so you’re all in the same place and will be easy to find each other. We’ll be there, the speakers will be there, so there’s no reason you shouldn’t be.

You can book online, easy peasy :) Just click here. Check out the Hotel and Travel tab for information on the hotel and getting around San Jose

While you’re booking your room, you have registered for the conference right? We have so much awesome lined up it’s hard to contain ourselves when talking about it :) Register now!

Normally everyone has to stay at one of the two hotels nearby then walk, light rail or drive over.

This time we’re trying something different. We’re going to be staying downtown (near bars that stay open past 8!), at the Downtown San Jose Marriott

There’s an awesome bar on site, and a great restaurant, and it’s right on the VTA line so you can come and go to the conference.

But wait I’m not done :)

The Marriott has agreed to provide a shuttle loop in the morning and evening for an hour each time to shuttle everyone back and forth Monday – Wednesday. Just be outside ready to go during that hour, and you’ll be on your way to eBay Town Hall.

Also, every attendee staying at the Marriott will get free internet in their guest room. Just in case you have to work when you’re not partying with us :)

We think this will make the hours between sunset and sunrise much more interesting for everyone. Party with us at eBay then when that’s done, we can party all over downtown San Jose!

The room rate is an awesome $99/night

Book your room now! The room block isn’t huge. If you stay somewhere else, you’re on your own to get back and forth to eBay.

You can call 800.228.9290 to book your room!

While you’re at it, you should make sure to register, 360|Flex San Jose sells out, don’t miss it! Register now!