i have never ever heard of it. i won't accuse of not publicising it well, but, i mean, i have never ever heard of it. i would have considered going. especially if you were! hmpf. you are awesome. so there.

awww. I actually missed Northern Voice (again!) this year. I was too slow to sign up and by the time I did it was sold out.

I'd love to meet you too though. Hopefully one of us will take a ferry trip soon and we can make it happen!

What's the point of a Canadian blogger conference if it's not advertised well and it sells out quickly? It sounds like it's even more of a popularity contest than a lot of people seem to think BlogHer is.

Just my first impression that is. I could be wrong. I usually am.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't. That's the Blogher way! :)

I really don't think it's much of a popularity contest. After watching the events through the net and reading blogs and articles, it isn't set up this way.

I'm not sure how one goes about advertising a blog conference, except through "word of blog". This is how I learned about blogher. I happen to have to have been contacted regarding Northern Voice but I don't think that it was a popularity thing, just someone wanting me to know it was going to happen and wanted to know if I wanted to go.

For some reason, going to NorthernVoice isn't as daunting to me as blogher. I think this is most likely because the people I read that are going to blogher seem to be, whether they like it or not, the celebs of the "mommy bloggers" and the people I read that may have gone to NorthernVoice are ordinary people who most likely aren't going to have gaggles of people asking for interviews and therefore, it would be easier to say Hi and get to know them.

As well, I should add, there are some going to blogher who aren't necessarily celebs but who I would expect to get along famously with.... and what if I didn't? What if it was horrible? I don't have this kind of expectation with Northern Voice.

Sorry you missed the conference--maybe next year.

You're right, we didn't publicize NV very much. We were selling at a good rate, so publicity (which only happens late in the day as it is) wasn't required, and would have only caused us more grief in turning more people away.

The venue holds 260 people, and it was packed out on Saturday. If we run another conference next year, we may change venues, but there's a lot to recommend UBC Robson Square. Plus, you can reach a certain scale where a conference is ludicrously large. At 250 or so, at least you've got a chance of talking to everybody that you might want to.

I'm not sure what's implied by a 'popularity contest'. The only people we invited were the keynote speakers, and a few people to fill out some panels. All of the sessions were submitted by our speakers. Plus, the actual attendees are entirely self-selecting, and I don't think our price point ($25) exactly fosters elitism.

There, see, I knew I was wrong.

It's nice to hear some more details and feedback on the whole thing!

Thanks for that, Darren.