Fronteers' reason d’etre is to support and educate front-end developers in the Netherlands. For this reason since 2007, we have held a yearly conference which over the last decade-and-a-bit has grown to attract more than 500 front-enders from all over Europe. In 2016, a one-off Spring Conference was held as a special event, and inspired by the success of that conference we were looking forward to hosting another on april 5th this year.
Unfortunately we have had to simmer down our ambitions and have had to make the difficult decision to cancel Spring Conference. The main reason is that our timing wasn't right: the amount of effort required to coordinate, organise, follow up and make decisions was more than the time we had available between re-energizing ourselves after the main conference and the holiday season. We were too late in getting all the materials necessary to announce ticket sales on time.
While selling tickets is important for any paid event, Fronteers is not a commercial enterprise. We organise meetups, conferences and workshops to help better our fellow developers and improve the tech climate in the Netherlands. It is important to us to do this right, or not at all. We should definately not attempt to sell tickets, and risk letting speakers down or having our attendees booking non-refundable hotel rooms. This is why we announce this cancellation today and not further down the road.
Naturally the speakers that agreed to come have been informed and will be covered for any costs made so far. People who bought an early bird ticket for Spring Conference will be given the choice to be reimbursed, or be given a discount for the conference in October.
Even though cancelling Spring Conference was an incredibly tough decision to make, especially for the conference committee that spent a lot of time on curating a wonderful line-up, we do know front-enders in the Netherlands aren’t left without some great alternatives to attend this spring and we heartily recommend them:
- React Amsterdam, April 10-12, 2019, Kromhouthal, Amsterdam
- Frontend United, May 17-18, Utrecht
- CSS Day/UI Day, June 13-14, Compagnietheater, Amsterdam (we are in the process of discussing a member discount for CSS Day, so please contact the board if you're interested to go!)
In the meantime, the conference team has already started working on the line-up for the fall Fronteers Conference (to be held October 3 and 4)! Watch this space for more news on that soon!