Symphony.

It sure looks good. Anyone wants to share a room?

It looked good to me, and it's really close to the Symposium venue. The art’otel cologne has my vote. And I'm happy to share a room.

The art’otel looks good to me too. I am keen to book hotel, flights etc and also to share a room.

I'm planning on a 3 night stay checking in on Thurs 29th and checking out Sunday 2nd.

Would anyone like to share and for me to book a shared room on their behalf?

Would anyone like to share and for me to book a shared room on their behalf?

Wife has just persuaded me to have my own room for my rare nights away from our 2 babies!

I haven't booked my flight and hotel yet, as I'm still planning out my trip. I needed some time to map this out. Including Italy in the trip seemed a little too ambitious, so I thought I would focus on Germany so I don't spend all my time travelling. But a trip from Cologne to Munich with stops in Bonn, Braunschweig, Berlin, Dessau and Weimar seems like it would work.

How does that sound? Michael, are you still up for a road trip.

The Symposium will take place at the KOMED, located at the Mediapark. So you might want to reconsider the hotel. But Cologne is not that big and the Mediapark is easily accessible via public transport. Sorry for any inconvenience.

Here is the link to the Google map with locations for the venue and possible hotels.

There is a nice restaurant (my brother works there) very close to the KOMED and I reserved an option for room for up to 32 people on saturday (it's closed on sundays). So please let me know if you are interested to go there and I'll confirm the reservation.

But a trip from Cologne to Munich with stops in Bonn, Braunschweig, Berlin, Dessau and Weimar seems like it would work.

I might live in Cologne by october and monday the 3rd is a public holiday. So I'm happy to show you around Cologne or Bonn then. It's just a 30min train ride.

Including Italy in the trip seemed a little too ambitious, so I thought I would focus on Germany

Booo! (just kidding ;))

There is a nice restaurant [...]

I'm up for eating there Saturday.

Count me in for the restaurant.

I'm still open to touring Italy. What stops would you suggest? Milan, Venice, Rome?

Stephen, reminds me of last summer when some mates and I drove from London to Croatia via Belgium, France, Luxembourg, Germany, Austria and Slovenia. A fitting end for Fazal's old motor. How long are you planning for your trip?

(I'll also thank the whole Symphony community again, with your help we raised £1500 for charity. Cheers.)

We only had a boozy night in each place (at best) but would recommend all of it, particularly Munich. But the "real" Europeans on the forum will have far better recommendations than I!

Hi all, really fancy a trip to Cologne to meet all you guys and be part of the discussions on the future direction of Symphony. Not being a heavy coder and more of front end guy who loves the Symphony approach, would those involved welcome more of an observer at this point or is it more for the hands on core team kind of meet?

… would those involved welcome more of an observer at this point or is it more for the hands on core team kind of meet?

You'll be welcome! The Symposium is open to everyone who works with Symphony and loves the system. As we wrote in the announcement:

From beginners to experts, this three-day event from September 30 to October 2, 2011 invites all designers, coders and XSLT lovers working with Symphony to join the talks and discussions.

It's about meeting the community. We will publish a more detailed agenda soon.

By the way: In preparation of the event, we'd like to know how many attendees we'll have to expect. So everyone who already signed up for the conference, please update your status accordingly:

http://getsymphony.com/get-involved/events/symposium-2011/

Thanks!

Ahh thanks Nils, this forum is like my extended family these days anyways :) great, will discuss time off with work and await more details.

Woop, a little excited now :)

Not being a heavy coder and more of front end guy who loves the Symphony approach

That describes me, too, and I'll be there doing my best to formulate a rough idea as to what all the programmers are talking about. :-)

To the organisers: are you on the lookout for ideas as to what you will talk about or do you already have it planned? I have one idea I think it would be interesting to know some more about.

We already have a rough agenda with talks and discussions but nothing final. So please post ideas or topics you'd like to discuss during the event.

My idea for a (briefly covered?) topic is building sections via XML. I was thinking getting more of an idea of how it might work and be integrated into the building process would be great as I'm interested in defining structure in this way.

I appreciate this feature may not have turned out to be a priority in which case it might not be a suitable topic for the conference.

So is art’otel cologne confirmed as the best place for everyone yet? would like to book this week? I'd hate to be a loner in a hotel the other side of town...

Just a small note to all designers:

The UX/UI working group started working on Symphony 2.3 which will primarily focus on interface enhancements. The backend will be realigned, we are trying to focus on content and reduce the space used by the navigation and other default elements. We are also working on concepts to improve the With selected interface and other often used parts of the system.

We hope to have the first beta ready for the conference and we will certainly continue working on 2.3 during the weekend. So if you know CSS or JavaScript and if you'd like to help improving the visual style of the backend the conference will be a good place for that.

Improving Symphony is all about ideas.
And the Symposium is about all things related to Symphony.

I really want to come along to the event, just looking at flights and accommodation and it's getting expensive for little old me. It's coming out of either my pocket or my christmas bonus.

It's more than likely I will have to stay in the youth hostel, which is fine by me really, unless someone wants to share a room?

Not a definite yet though, although I really want to come see some of you!

Hey John, more than happy to share a room if your going! gonna try and book end of week/start of next, so if you have a more definite decision let me know!

Hostel does seem nice and cheap option though.. more beer money :)