Brace yourself: PHP NZ Conference is coming!

In just one week, the biggest names in web development will be visiting Wellington for the PHP NZ Conference. If you haven’t grabbed your ticket yet here’s our top 5 reasons why you really should…

Reason 1: High quality speakers

The PHP NZ Conference organisers have delivered an impressive line up of speakers for the 2015 event. Of the 23 speakers, 18 are international guests. Included in the schedule are creator of MySQL Michael Widenius, NGINX creator Igor Sysoev, flysystem creator Frank de Jonge and Head of API at Ride.com Phil Sturgeon.

The ticket price of $550 for two days is unbelievable value for money considering the calibre of the speakers, most conferences cost this much for one day!

Reason 2: The FREE PHP NZ Conference Warm Up

If you can’t wait a whole week for the conference then the pre-conference warm-up is the place to be. This is a FREE community run event hosted by the PHP Wellington User Group and SilverStripe. A selection of the conference speakers and local developers will be giving 5 minute lightning talks on PHP, web development and technology.

Everyone’s welcome, even if you can’t make the conference but there’s limited spaces so RSVP on the PHP Wellington Meetup page now!

Reason 3: Friendly vibe

The pre-conference warm-up is a great way to meet people prior to the conference. One of the best aspects of the 2014 conference was the friendly vibe. PHP NZ Conference benefits from being a smaller conference. Last year there were 150 attendees and around 200 are expected in 2015.

This means there’s plenty of time to chat with the speakers and other attendees. The organisers facilitate opportunities throughout the conference to get to know other developers. This means you’ll not only walk away with a head full of new knowledge, but undoubtedly some new mates too.

Reason 4: Get the latest on SilverStripe

We’re proud to have 3 SilverStripers speaking at PHP NZ this year! It’s a great opportunity to hear what we’re working on:

• CTO Hamish Friedlander will be speaking on “How to give away all your code and still turn a profit”

• Solutions Architect Julian Seidenberg is sharing how to improve website speed by “Optimising the full stack”

• Principal Developer Chris Pitt has promised to unlock the magical world of generators with his talk “Co-operative Multitasking with Generators”.

Reason 5: It’s not just PHP

While the heart of the conference is PHP, there’s plenty of web development and technology topics on the schedule. Highlights include Dustin Whittle’s session on “Modern Frontend Engineering” and Amy Palamountain’s “Making desktop apps with JavaScript”.

So what are you waiting for? There’s only a few tickets to PHP NZ Conference left so make sure you grab yours quickly!