WWDC sold out in ten hours. | Hacker News Reader

WWDC sold out in ten hours.

developer.apple.com

95 pointssahillavingia68 comments

Wow. I guess I'll be at home this year crying myself to sleep.

The quickness at which this sold out prompts a few questions:

1. I guess only small development houses are going this year because most big companies can't get purchasing approved that fast. I know mine wasn't able to.

2. Is it time for Apple to consider a format to allow more people to attend? Their platform has grown 10x in 5 years, but the conference is still in the same facility.

3. Did Apple release fewer tickets this year to hold more tickets for their partners? I know last year, the conference sold out quick, and that didn't allow big companies time to react. I question if even Apple's purchasing department could have made a purchase this quick if they were invited to attend such a popular conference.

4. Does this mean that people are now going to be scalping WWDC tickets? Their value is clearly much more than $1600.

It seems to me that most of the innovation doesn't come from big companies anyway, so why should Apple give them precedence for any seats?

My knee-jerk reaction would be to agree, but I think it's also a matter of who can be helped the most. Smaller teams might not be able to afford extensive training from The Big Nerd Ranch or other outfits as much as larger corps might. So WWDC is certainly most useful to indie developers, but that doesn't mean Apple needs to market it expressly so.

The games pushing the graphics limits of the ios hardware mainly game from big dev houses (Think ID, Activision, etc) The software pushing the limits of OSX mainly comes from big software house (Think Adobe or VMWare)

Despite it's success selling it's own software Apple would still have some massive problems if either Microsoft or Adobe announced that they were no longer developing for the Mac.

Indeed. I think they are less important for WWDC as well. I've no doubt that the big companies can go visit the Apple Campus anytime they want and speak to the engineers as much as they want - they don't need WWDC

Yes, to answer #4:

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sby/tix/2292204668.html

(Edit: Not my CL post. Just something I came across this afternoon.)

I really wish apple disallowed transfers and went with a refunds-only policy to discourage scalping.

Same goes for google i/o

I'm fairly certain WWDC tickets are not transferrable.

> Conference badges are not transferable. The full conference fee will be charged to replace a lost badge.

http://developer.apple.com/wwdc/faq/

Edit: Nevermind. Just read the CL post. Wonder how long that code is good for.

Ok, now I feel like I missed out on something.

1. Maybe not. I've attended WWDC on behalf of small startups and for Yahoo. In both cases, my managers told me (and the other attendees) to go ahead and purchase a ticket with our personal credit cards as soon as registration opened. The company would then reimburse us later. There was just no other way to secure the needed tickets without charging $20k+ on a corporate card - which would have required weeks of approval first.

Ad 4: If they don't already, requiring developer licenses should, at the very least, work in Apple's favour.

Maybe they can set up some more requirements and allot a certain amount for press.

In other words, they might have to micromanagement and control more - which is very much in the spirit of Apple.

I'd be interested to see if any event experts have some common wisdom on thwarting scalpers.

Is it time for Apple to consider a format to allow more people to attend?

While undoubtedly not a perfect substitute for attending, they did take a big positive step last year by posting the session videos only a week after and eliminating additional fee for non-attendee access to them.

This is an excellent point. I remember last year thinking that the speed with which they did that was a giant 'FU' to all the devs who paid real $ to go to those sessions. However, given the lack of outrage, plus the speed with which it sold out this year, I guess the devs don't mind. Presumably they feel they're getting sufficient value from the other aspects of it.

Also, with respect to the 'allow more people to attend', I think that would wreck their 4:1 ratio of devs to Apple engineers which they seem quite proud of?

2. Is it time for Apple to consider a format to allow more people to attend? Their platform has grown 10x in 5 years, but the conference is still in the same facility.

I hope not. Currently, the presentations are done by Apple engineers -- who then typically go and spend the rest of the week in lab sessions to have one on one's with people.

If more presentations are needed, either the lab quality will go down (which is very bad as labs are the best part of WWDC) or the presentation quality will go down because they will no longer be given by the engineers that created the tech behind the presentations.

There's also the immense amount of time that is spent by presenters beforehand in preparing for a session. If you think that Steve Jobs is the only one at Apple who spend hours and hours perfecting his WWDC presentation, you'd be very wrong.

small sold out events look and sound better than big empty events. also the 4:1 dev to engineer ratio is a major selling point.

I purchased a ticket personally as it was worth attending from a personal stand point back in 2009 even coming from the UK.

You have to wonder whether the developer part of the conference should be ticketed separately from the keynote, as I would happily miss the keynote for access to the information. From what I heard in 2010 a lot of people only attended the first day to see what would be announced, you would think the price would be enough to deter bloggers etc but apparently not, the same goes for Google IO

The people at WWDC used to be cool. The last couple of years they've been drowned out by masses of people trying to cash in on iOS fads.

A lot of companies didn't even send their programmers last year—they sent their managers instead. The idiot managers don't even know WTF is going on. These people aren't worth talking to.

s/iOS fads/apple's business plan for the foreseeable future/ and you nailed it.

Witnessing a Steve Jobs keynote in person appeals to a lot more people than chatting at one of Apple's developer labs.

That plus the usual large-company conference boondoggle explains why WWDC has a lot of non-developer attendees. To make the conference 100% developers, either Apple has to get a lot less cool or the keynote needs to be moved out. Put the thing in Pac Bell Park and sell keynote-only tickets, and you'll get what you want.

Since the session videos will be online after the conference for registered Apple developers (that's what they did last year - setting a new Google I/O-pressured precedent), I think that leaves the sessions you really want to go to, Labs, networking, socializing.

The sessions. All of them are top-notch. Learn how to write code like an Apple engineer or think like one. They all know how to present and they all are happy to be there.

The Labs are unbelievable. You come with your thorniest bug/problem to the appropriate section and an Apple engineer will sit down with you to figure it out. You might have to wait a while but they will bring in other team members, if you have a particularly thorny issue.

When it comes to networking/socializing - just waiting in line for sessions/talking to people next to me - I met people who had written top-selling iPad/iPhone and/or well-known apps.

Oh, and partying. That is almost like networking but with full bar service.

Good luck and congratulations to those going, it's like no other technical conference.

I/O Pressured? PDC/MIX has been doing this for a few years now...

Perhaps they helped push Apple that way but as someone who went to WWDC10 with the expectation that I would unable to see the content otherwise as the videos were restricted to attendees (and or those who had an ADC Select/Premier account) it was kind of a shock they went that way finally. Especially because it was announced barely after the conference had exponentially faded from our memories.

Google I/O is pushing the boundaries of free again - live streaming to locally-organized developer parties in select Worldwide locations of major sessions and the keynotes.

http://googlecode.blogspot.com/2011/03/google-io-extends-vir...

Like PDC?

I don't know how long PDC has been doing this, but if it's quite a while now and Apple ignored them the whole time, then that makes it more likely that Google is the one putting pressure on Apple.

To that same note, I think there's probably quite a few developers (like myself) that were quite used to session videos from Microsoft conferences, that the lack of them when switching to Apple dev seemed like a big loss.

Startup idea: allow people to share their conference badges during unused days (or during any non-use times). I often can't stay an entire conference, and usually ditch my badge. For a sold out show, would be nice to hand it to someone else. "The AirBnB of Conference Badges"

I'm sure this goes against the badge policies, however.

This would be a cool feature for lanyrd.com

The last wwdc i went to experienced a sharp decline in population after the keynote.

that's kind of sad. you'd think people will stick around to learn stuff, not just to say they attended the keynote

I don't know when the person you replied to last went, but I went to every WWDC since 2007 and the sessions have only gotten more and more packed and lab time for some popular topics even harder to come across. Granted there's always unpopular/niche sessions with half empty rooms, but I also went to sessions that were so packed all the available floor space that wasn't a fire hazard was occupied.

I understand the grumbling at the idiots that buy a $1600 ticket to watch the keynote, but I don't think there's that many people that truly impulse buy such a thing just to see the damn keynote. I've skipped out on half the keynotes so far to sleep in and eat breakfast and show up in time for the SOTUs in the afternoon instead, which are much more informational.

How long ago was this? I was there in 2008 and 2010 and both years were packed to the rafters all week long.

Apple lets the press attend the keynote, but not the rest of the conference. Maybe that explains the decline.

Yeah this is something that happens a lot at WWDC. Every year Apple threatens to check IDs at the door, but they never do that I have seen besides at registration.

This is almost universally against convention rules. If it became popular, the conference organizers would just start making good on their threats and you'd see your name cursed across the Internet for getting your users' badges taken away.

If you happened to have added a ticket in your cart on store.apple.com it might very well still be there (and be able to be purchased) after the conference is sold out.

That's how I got in last year after slow management approval nearly ruined it for me.

I lobbied extra hard for quick management approval (new company) this year. I'll see some of you there :)

Thanks for this, I fortunately added the ticket to my cart on my phone late last night (I'm in Australia) and woke up this morning to the sellout. Seems like check out all went well. Now processing so hopefully I'll be able to repay you with a drink there.

Just an update for anyone still reading this. Apple just rang me today to refund my money, they received the order after all tickets had already been allocated :-(.

Thanks for a great tip. I was waiting on wife approval, because I need to make sure it didn't conflict with our planned vacation. I might be unstuck now.

Damnit ... I really wanted to go but 1599 on my own dime was a bit too steep. I thought I'd sleep on it but it is like they say: you snooze you lose. Oh well .. I managed to go to PyCon and will hopefully be at Google IO.

I hope you got your ticket for Google I/O already. It sold out in less than an hour this year.

(I think they are still doing the competitions so if your going that route then "good luck!")

According to http://gigaom.com/apple/wwdc-2011-sells-out-in-less-than-one... "WWDC 2010 took eight days to sell out entirely". That's pretty impressive assuming the same number of tickets (5000) were sold.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Worldwide_Developers_Conf... mentions the number of tickets being capped at 5000 for the past 2 years.

So what's the second biggest Mac OS/iOS developer conference?

I've only heard good things about their Austin edition.

WHEN: September 11-14, 2011 WHERE: Denver, CO

http://www.360idev.com/

For Mac:

http://nsconference.com/

Props for NSConf:

http://mattgemmell.com/2009/05/01/nsconference-2009

NSConference USA is merging with MacTech Conference:

http://www.mactech.com/conference/nsconference

Last year's conference was fantastic. Has IT and Dev tracks. Highly recommended.

#import "disclosure.h" I help run SecondConf, feel free to ask if you have any questions.

But, we're on the opposite end of the spectrum. We intentionally keep it small, so everyone can have a chance to talk with everyone else. We just announced our date for this year (9/23-25) and more details will be coming soon: http://www.secondconf.com/ if you're interested, you should follow @secondconf on twitter.

(minor edit to fix typo and add twitter info)

I hope Apple will repeat the same event at a venue in Asia Pacific to cater for the other half of the world. Maybe at Sydney, Shanghai, HongKong or Singapore.

I would really love to go to one of these now that I am starting iOS in one of my courses. I wish Apple had student tickets for this conference. :(

Apple used to offer student scholarships to WWDC (I got one back in 2003). It looks like they no longer do that though (as of just this year).

The FAQ[1] says that “there will be a WWDC Student Scholarship.”

[1] https://developer.apple.com/wwdc/faq/

I got scholarship on 2008 and 2010, i expect them to offer the same thing this year, just be patient and wait for a few days until the details come out =)

I find the title kind of exaggerated considering Google I/O sold out in less than an hour.

And JSConf in ~40 minutes.

Concerts routinely sell out in minutes so Apple has nothing on this!

Google I/O got sold out because every body who got the ticket knew that they are going to get a latest android phone which is priced higher than the ticket price! Definitely a big motivational incentive to hit the buy button.

Not true for all attendees but probably for a good percentage.

To say that attendees know they will be getting the latest Android phone is a little presumptuous. That'd be like saying if I wanted a new car, all I need to do is be an audience member on Oprah.

Have all audience members on Oprah for the past 3 years been given cars?

The title is just a statement of how long it took to sell out, "WWDC sold out in ten hours." — tell me where the exaggeration is in that sentence.

I feel that the fact that OP mentioned the time, it was supposed to be read as a grand feat, which it wasn't. But if I'm wrong then I'm wrong.

10 hours might not seem like a "grand feat" but if I remember well, last year it took over a week for the tickets to be sold out...

It sure is a grand feat. Could you explain why you think that it isn’t?

In 2009 Google I/O was sold out only after ninety days and Apple’s WWDC was sold out only after more than thirty days. In 2010 both conferences sold out only after a few days.

That both conferences now sell out in substantially less than a day is newsworthy and a grand feat.

While it did sell out in less than an hour, you're exaggerating because that doesn't include the ample time offered to previous attendees beforehand.

http://phandroid.com/2011/01/31/google-io-registration-opens...

2008 marked the first year that WWDC ever sold out (they capped tickets at 5000).

2009 sold out in two months

2010 sold out in one week

2011 sold out in half a day.

Aaaaaagh! :(

Guess I'm not going after all.

the only way to know about and get tickets in time is twitter. booo apple.

I saw them go on sale this morning in my rss reader, and bought one right away. Tweetlessly.

I've always wanted to attend, but never have been able to.

I got an email at 11:34am eastern time from Apple about WWDC. Plenty of time.

One more reason to use Twitter!

I bought all the tickets to sell on StubHub.com!

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