Last night at the PHPNW user group we announced this year’s conference – PHPNW09. We don’t have a lot of detail but here is a run-down of all the information I have:

• Date: Saturday 10th October 2009
• Location: Manchester Conference Centre. It’s a new venue but just as central and actually easier to get to.
• Website: http://conference.phpnw.org.uk which currently points at last year’s conference but feel free to click around to get a feel and we’ll update that soon.
• Focus: PHP in the team – we’re having a real focus on PHP teams, tools and practices for them.
• Price: We’re aiming for the Early Bird tickets at 50 GBP + VAT, similar to last year (OK so last year was inc VAT but hey, it’s still excellent value). This price will run until 10th September, a month before the conference, at which point they’ll become more expensive.
• Speakers: Yes please! Like last year, we’ll be running a call for papers and we’ll be looking for some well-known speakers and some we haven’t heard of yet. Like last year the speaker’s package will include the speaker’s dinner, a conference pass and hotel accommodation, but won’t include travel expenses – if you are interested then look out for a CfP in August
• Schedule: See previous point ;)

Did I miss anything? If so, drop me a comment.

The timescales (all subject to change for no apparent reason and without warning) are something along the lines of getting the site live in June, the tickets on sale in July, the CfP out in August, closing towards the end of that month, publishing the schedule at the start of September to give people chance to get tickets still on the early bird rates which expire on 10th September – then another month for people who like their tickets more expensive and finally the event itself on 10th October.

A few other things I would like to mention:

1. We want sponsors, including some quite small ones! If that’s you, please contact us or just leave a comment with your details
2. We will need some volunteers on the day, all of whom get free entry – again, let us know if you are up for that
3. We’re considering running a “day 0”, probably a hands-on day on the Friday, currently we don’t have either venues or clear plans for this so if you have any thoughts or ideas, add a comment!