Two of my favourite conferences are running events across the pond this year, and I’m totally stoked about it.

FitC Amsterdam

On Feb 22-24 FitC will be running a conference in Amsterdam. I spoke at Spark Europe a couple years ago, and I have to say that Amsterdam is an awesome city for a Flash conference. Pair that with FitC’s solid reputation to deliver a well-organized conference with a great vibe and a killer speaker line-up, and I think it will be an amazing event. Downing a magic muffin prior to some of the inspirational sessions (Josh Davis?) could be interesting too. FitC Amsterdam sold out last year, so you might want to grab tickets while you can.

Flash On The Beach Miami

I’ve been to Flash on the Beach in Brighton two years running now, and it just keeps getting better! This year, John (the organizer) is bringing FotB to North America with an event in Miami on April 6-8. This means you will get to experience all the awesomeness of FotB, and there will actually be a real beach! (sorry John, a bunch of pebbles on a cold, grey stretch of ocean doesn’t count as a beach for me) It’s hard to quantify, but there’s something special about FotB, my theory is that it’s a trickle down effect from John, whose boundless enthusiasm, good humor, and general niceness rub off on speakers and attendees alike. FotB also sells out every year, and “Double Early Bird Pricing” ends December 19th.

I’m going to be running a rewritten version of the “Things Every Flash Developer Should Know” talk that I did at FotB08, focused more on the technical specifics of architecture, optimization, and memory management. Basically distilling things I’ve been working out for myself over 10 years of working with Flash into a one hour session.

With the uncertain economy, now is a good time to upgrade your skills, and get in some networking (time and money permitting). Hope to see some of you there!