The editor of the SitePoint PHP blog, Bruno Skvorc, has posted a summary of his experience at Bulgaria PHP, a recent PHP conference held in Sofia, Bulgaria back in the beginning of October.

BulgariaPHP is a PHP conference consisting of one workshop day, and two talk days with two tracks each. Just like last year, this year’s conference happened in the SEC (Sofia Event Center) in Sofia, Bulgaria, on the top floor of the Paradise Mall. Unlike last year, however, this year’s edition had a theme.

Excellently organized by the event team at SiteGround, a shared and cloud hosting provider 500 employees strong, the conference was all up in retro gaming, from the attendee badges and decals, to the surroundings and micro-events within the event. Even the crew were all dressed as Super Mario, which I’m sure would have caused an aneurysm or two in the minds of Nintendo’s lawyers had they gotten wind of it.

He talks about his experience as both a speaker and attendee at this year's event (and how he felt "spoiled"). He covers some of the speakers that were at the event, the topics he personally learned about and how the conference itself was handled (sponsors, the theme and the charity the conference provided to a local school).

The Full Stack Radio podcast has posted their latest episode today, episode #17, hosted by Adam Wathan and featuring guest Adam Culp. Adam and Adam talk about ways you can maximize your conference experience.

n this episode, Adam talks to Adam Culp, organizer of Sunshine PHP and ZendCon. They talk about how to get into conference speaking, how to make the most of a conference as an attendee, as well as tips for running a great local user group.

You can listen to this latest episode either through the in-page audio player or by downloading the mp3 for the show. If you enjoy it, be sure to subscribe to their feed for more great episodes as they're released.

7PHP.com has a new post that shares some of the feedback - from both the speaker and other attendees - of the latest Nomad PHP meeting featuring Phil Sturgeon talking on Laravel 4.

Previously on thursday 27th July 2013 (8pm CDT), NomadPHP hosted their 2nd talk which was about “Laravel 4” – the speaker being Phil Sturgeon. I also announced my 2nd free ticket giveaway for this online event – a generosity awesomely made possible by the ever-awesome @NomadPHP organizer; Cal Evans. In this short (as compared to the previous one) article, the spotlight will be on the speaker and an attendee. I’m thankful to both for their responses and sharing their NomadPHP experience with us. We’ll also have a quick (as in very quick) glance at the ticket winners.

The article starts with some of the feedback from Phil and his observations from the speaker side of things. This is followed by the attendee perspective from Don Gilbert, a maintainer of the Joomla framework. They talk about the goods and bads of the presentation and things they think the virtual user group could improve on in the future.

Rafael Dohms has a new post to his blog about some of the lessons he learned attending this year's PHP Benelux conference both from the perspective of attending the conference and having been at several conferences around the world.

After hearing about how great PHP Benelux Conferences were I finally made it over to Belgium to check it out, and i was impressed. To catch you up on the new, I moved to Amsterdam last december and thus had the chance of attending the conference which is now 2 hours away on a train ride. I could not expect less of a wonderful conference when names like Michelangelo van Dam are involved and this was no exception.

Among his suggestions, there's things like:

• Value your sponsors
• Value your attendees
• Make your attendees pay
• Value the organizers and your volunteers

...and one of the most important ones: "Have Fun!" If you're not following this piece of advice, you're probably doing it wrong.

On his "MySQL Talk" blog Joe Devon has posted a (very) belated wrapup of ZendCon 2011 he attended earlier this year.

I started writing a Zendcon recap post as soon as I got back. And then mis-timed a couple projects. Note to freelancers, make sure your new gig starts AFTER your old gig is over. Or you'll be working an insane schedule. Hence the lateness... First the good part. What made Zendcon special.

He notes that it was a great opportunity to meet people "in real life" that he'd only spoken with online and the overall wonderful experience it was. He mentions some specific people in the PHP community including Juozas Kaziukenas, Daniel Cousineau, some impromptu singing of Queen songs and many more (too many to name here). He also mentions some of the sessions attended including the tutorial on Zend Framework and an uncon talk from Ilia Alshanetsky about optimization.

The Zend Developer Zone has posted an official announcement bout the wiki for the Zend/PHP Conference & Expo 2007 being posted and made live:

This year's wiki for attendees. You can see who is coming, register in one of the affiliated groups who are planning events, and take a look at the Birds of a Feather sessions that are being proposed.

Pages created so far include a list of the ZCEs attending, members of the #phpc channel (PHP community) on the Freenode IRC network and a page for phpwomen.org members who will be attending.

Whether you have a group you want to add a page for or just want to add your name to one of the lists already made, head over to the ZendCon wiki and make some updates.

The Zend Developer Zone has posted an official announcement bout the wiki for the Zend/PHP Conference & Expo 2007 being posted and made live:

This year's wiki for attendees. You can see who is coming, register in one of the affiliated groups who are planning events, and take a look at the Birds of a Feather sessions that are being proposed.

Pages created so far include a list of the ZCEs attending, members of the #phpc channel (PHP community) on the Freenode IRC network and a page for phpwomen.org members who will be attending.

Whether you have a group you want to add a page for or just want to add your name to one of the lists already made, head over to the ZendCon wiki and make some updates.

Tobias Schlitt has announced on his blog today that their PHP event, PHP Weekender, has reached the 50 attendee mark already.

It is a great feeling for us to see how many people are interested. Since we are at the university, we have enough space left to get some more attendees in, but beware, space is already getting rare.

For complete information on this event, check out the homepage and sign up today. There's no charge - just show up and enjoy learning everything from beginner PHP techniques out to best practices and working with PHP 5.

Tobias Schlitt has announced on his blog today that their PHP event, PHP Weekender, has reached the 50 attendee mark already.

It is a great feeling for us to see how many people are interested. Since we are at the university, we have enough space left to get some more attendees in, but beware, space is already getting rare.

For complete information on this event, check out the homepage and sign up today. There's no charge - just show up and enjoy learning everything from beginner PHP techniques out to best practices and working with PHP 5.