Tips to Score Your "Free" Ticket to a Tech Conference - Reading Time 3 Mins
📅 June 23, 2019
•⏱️4 min read
Introduction
I think the price of the ticket is the first thing that comes to my mind. Whenever I stumble across a tech conference that I really want to go.
But due to the steep prices of the tickets, I just drop the idea of going for that tech conference.
Yes, I am the kind of person who is unwilling to shell out for $300 or more for a technology conference.
Unless I believe that the value for that conference ticket is worth its weight in gold.
I hope that by sharing these tips with you on how to score your "free" ticket to the ticket.
It will help you immensely for yourself and the developer community you are in.
Be a Volunteer for Conference
This year is my 3rd time in helping to organise Python Conference (PyCon) in Singapore.
I can not stress this enough on the need to volunteer your time or expertise to score your "free" ticket.
As a tech conference organiser, I'm always looking for volunteers to help out to organise a technology conference.
By sharing the burden to run the event smoothly and earning enough revenue (in the black) so that we could have another tech conference the following year.
Organising a conference is an exhausting activity from searching for sponsors, getting a venue, to the arrangement of food for attendees or just video recording of conference talks.
Conference organisers appreciate all the help they could get their hands on with just a bit of your time and effort to help out to make it happen.
Be a Speaker or Instructor
This is a step up from as a volunteer to score your "free" ticket to the conference.
I would recommend any developer who had just started out in their developer career or veterans in the industry to submit CFP (Call for Proposals) to the conference organisers.
Do not be afraid to submit your proposal on what you know about a specific topic for the technology.
Here is my general guide on how I vet proposals from CFP as an organiser.
- Relevance to the conference theme?
- Is the proposal specific in detail on what is going to be presented as a talk or workshop?
- Is the topic interesting for a conference attendee?
- Is it easy for the viewer to digest in a short time?
- Is it useful for a conference attendee?
Seek to be part of the Super Connectors' Network
I had scored some tickets to these tech conferences through super connectors.
Super Connectors are thought leaders or people with a vast & strong personal network who had cultivated through their work professionally or volunteer work.
They might be meetup organisers or doing work that benefits the local developer community immensely like recording talks of technology meetups for developers who are unable to attend these meetups.
One such super connector is Michael Cheng the creator of Engineers.SG that is a non-profit community who helps to record tech talks and conferences for the developer community in Singapore.
Due to this "pay it forward" attitude of these super connectors, there will be opportunities where they might stumble across "free tickets" to tech conferences to their community to help out their fellow developer.
Thus there is no harm to be part of their network, but do note that if you plan to be part of the super connector's network.
You should also adopt this pay it forward mentally to provide referrals, spread the message or just rolling up your sleeves to volunteer to help out others as well.
Conclusion
I do not condemn the act of scoring "free" tickets by using these tips.
Since becoming a volunteer, a speaker or be part of a super connector's network.
These tips are really beneficial for a developer's career and the local developer community.
For any developer who values one's network and has the attitude in "paying it forward"
Lastly, as part of the organisers of PyCon SG 2019, we are looking out for potential sponsors & speakers.
We just started our CFP (Call For Proposal) recently for PyCon SG 2019. If you are interested, please sign up in the link below.
PyCon SG 2019 - Call For Proposal