I returned yesterday from an amazing four days in Zurich, Switzerland where I spoke at the first edition of “Flash at the Lake“. Its always difficult to know what to expect from a first time event, but I really think the organizers did an outstanding job.

One thing I found particularly interesting is having workshops as part of the conference and included in the ticket price. It worked really well and gave people the opportunity to deep dive for several hours into a specific topic (I for example joined the “Extending AIR” workshop by Ferdi Koomen and am looking forward to experimenting more with Qt).

The venue was unlike any other conference I’ve ever attended. Rote Fabrik is an interesting building with a lot of history and graffiti all over, just by the lake side. When first arriving the street side of the building sort of reminded me of the Adobe Townsend street office in San Francisco.

Ticket prices were very reasonable at just 135 Euro for two days of sessions and workshops including lunch. There weren’t a huge amount of attendees but it worked out well and based on the success of this edition I’m sure next year and beyond this event will sell out very soon.

It was great as always hanging out with fellow speakers and the organizers, who joined us every night despite their massive workload and getting little sleep. The conference had a real community vibe and am happy to have met a lot of new Swiss designers, developers and students and hear how they’re using various Flash Platform products. Looks like I might even have found some victims to help me build out my SQLite wrapper project and work on adding some additional features.

If you ever get the chance to attend or speak at this conference, I highly recommend it!
 

7 Comments

Sandro

June 29, 2009 - 12:38 pm | Permalink

Glad to hear you enjoyed your stay with us :) Hopefully we will see you again next year :)

Marcel

June 29, 2009 - 7:54 pm | Permalink

Hey Peter

It was amazing to have you here. Thanks again for everything. Hope to see you at Max.

Tiago

June 29, 2009 - 8:05 pm | Permalink

As Sandro and Marcel already mentioned, thanks a lot for being part of the first Flash At The Lake Event. Lets see eachother at MAX this year.