Having just put the finishing touches to the schedule for PHPNW09, I’m realising just how excited I am about this event coming up in less than a fortnight. This is the second year we’ve run the event, and its bigger and better than last year – and I know what a great crowd to expect! We kick off in Manchester on Friday 9th October for a pre-conference social, with the main event on Saturday and follow this, naturally, with another party! Since so many people are there for the weekend we’ve also taken some conference space for Sunday morning and begged a few more speakers to hang around and share their knowledge with those people who are staying for the weekend. (The Sunday speakers get no speaker package and they were all very gracious about having their arms twisted … we can’t thank them enough!)

The full schedule is now published with both Saturday and Sunday sessions now published along with timings for each. Although this is a local conference with a budget ticket price and organised by volunteers, the lineup would not look out of place at any other event on the PHP calendar – and we’d like to thank all the speakers that submitted talks to us, regardless of whether we managed to find time in the schedule for them. The submitters, the speakers, the helpers and the attendees are what makes this conference what it is – and I can’t wait! See you in Manchester :)