There’s only 3 months left till Macstock Conference and Expo in Woodstock, Illinois (right outside of Chicago) so it’s time to make plans! Macstock is one of the big highlights of my year. It’s a gathering of Apple fans from literally around the world who get together for 48 hours of education and fun. It takes place July 27 & 28th.
The format is interesting. In the mornings, all attendees gather in a large auditorium where we all get to watch 20-minute presentations by amazingly talented speakers. In the afternoons there are usually two tracks of deep dives by the same speakers. It’s cool because you get motivated to learn more by the short introductions but then get to really learn the details and even ask questions during the deep dives.
Here’s the speaker’s list – many of whom have been known to dance around in the NosillaCastaways groups from time to time: Rick Cartwright, Tim Robertson, Mike Schmitz, Wally Cherwinski, Kirschen Seah, Dave Ginsburg, Stephen Hackett, Allison Sheridan, Chuck Joiner, David Sparks, Rosemary Orchard, Brett Terpstra, and Josh Rensch. All of these folks are AMAZING.
In the middle of all this serious learning, Guy Serle and Tim Robertson do the MyMac.com game show which is hilarious. In theory, it’s a trivia game but everyone yells out answers, and their answers are sometimes wrong and it’s mostly frivolity and I love it. There are even prizes.
At night there are tons of activities put on by Barry Fulk. We’ve had karaoke, board game rooms, and even more frivolity. I think the evening activities are my favorite part. You get a chance to hang out with people with the same interest in the Mac and iOS, but also to find out about what else they do for fun. Steve and I have made some great new friends and keep hanging on to our old good friends. It’s simply awesome.
If I haven’t convinced you to sign up yet, how about a discount code? If you use the discount code podfeet at checkout at macstockexpo.com, you’ll get an extra $10 off the already discounted Early Bird ticket price. Until April 30th, that makes the total price only $169 for the whole weekend’s worth of learning and fun! After the early bird sale, the price will go up to $179 so get your tickets now.
Last year we had a photo taken of all the NosillaCastaways we could round up at Macstock and we had to use a wide-angle lens to get them all in. My goal is to have even more NosillaCastaways there than ever before. I hope you’ll join me and Steve so we can meet!