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Update on talks & tutorials, program committee, and registration!

Last week we wrapped up another great call for talks and tutorials, leading to a ton of excellent proposals for our Program Committee to work through in order to shape the PyCon 2015 schedule. I can already tell that it's going to be a great one; another one of those years where we could make several full conference schedules out of this body of proposals.

Tutorials

Tutorials saw a 40% increase in proposals, up to 99 submissions. This is the biggest jump I've seen, as tutorial proposal numbers have been relatively steady over the years, with small rises or falls here or there. This shouldn't come as a surprise given the growth of Python's use in education, both institutionally and otherwise. We've always gotten a bunch of full-time educators interested in sharing their knowledge with the Python community, and we're getting more. The majority of instructors, however, come from outside of academia, with everything from book authors to project creators being involved. It's going to be a really solid schedule.

Talks

Talks actually saw the first drop since I've been involved, but we're looking at 17 fewer talk proposals, with 541 to review (3% - enjoy that immeasurable break, Program Committee!). Not to worry, though, because with 95 talk slots and the quality of proposals we've received, we could run several PyCons side-by-side and just randomly assign you to one, and it would be the best. We could also just run PyCon for like a month. It's that good this year.

Posters

Not so fast - posters are still being accepted through November 1!

The Program Committee

Now that we have all of these proposals to shape into a schedule, we need some help. Our Program Committee handles the review duties, and they're gladly accepting anyone who wants to help out. All it takes is some time and a willingness to make PyCon the best that it can be.

Just like PyCon is for all types of people, from beginners through experts, the committee needs to be formed of that same range. I just said on our mailing list the other day that I've reviewed probably 100 Django related proposals over the years, and I've used Django roughly zero times. That's legit, and it's actually really valuable to the rest of the committee, and to the conference. We all know different stuff, and we all look at proposals differently. The wide spectrum of levels and experiences makes for a great crew of people to be putting together a schedule that meets the diverse backgrounds of our audience.

If you have some time to commit to reviewing proposals to help us come up with the PyCon 2015 schedule, please consider introducing yourself to the Program Committee mailing list at pycon-pc@python.org. Let us know what you're up to, if you're interested in tutorials and/or talks, and we'll get you squared away. We've just begun our review process, and we'd love to have more people involved!

Registration!

Did you know registration is open? Did you know we're still within early bird pricing? Did you know you can save $150 a corporate ticket, $50 on an individual ticket, or $25 on a student ticket if you buy early? YES YOU CAN. Say it with me: Yes. I. Can. PyCon is going to sell out once again, so make sure you buy early and buy often.


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