The Laracon EU site has posted their official announcement about their 2017 event happening August 28–30th in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

We are thrilled to announce that our fifth anniversary of Laracon EU takes place on August 28–30th in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The annual Laracon EU conference brings together PHP and Laravel developers from throughout the world for a multi-track experience of 3 days training, talks, and networking.

Bring your team for a day of workshops on August 28th (workshops to be announced) then stay for two days (August 29th-30th) of presentations that will bring your team up-to-date with technological changes and practices and provide ample social opportunities to enhance support and discovery networks.

They're doing something different with the badges for this year's event - allowing attendees to customize their badge choosing from several backgrounds, text colors and gradients. Tickets are already on sale - Blind Bird (pre-selection) are going for 349 Euro (+VAT). They're also looking for sponsors to be a part of the event so be sure to check out that link if you or your company is interested.

In this most recent post Joshua Thijssen looks at an interesting subject - fragmentation in the PHP community due to a higher level of regional user groups...and how it could actually result in isolation.

Until a few years ago, The Netherlands (wrongly called Holland) had only one single usergroup : PHPGG. After a few years a decision made to merge this Dutch group and the Belgium version of it into a single usergroup: PHPBenelux. [...] But there is a trend going on in the PHP world, especially in the Netherlands. There are usergroups popping out of the ground lately, mostly centered on a specific city. And it’s easy: goto meetup.com, sign up, create your group et voila, you are born. If you are a high-end group, you even will register a domain-name as well.

He suggests that, because of these groups, the overall number of attendees in all groups is dropping - even the larger ones. This fragmentation of groups is also breaking down things into more specific technologies, reducing the number of people coming to the more general "web oriented" groups as well. He encourages developers to attend a user group that doesn't involve PHP and learn something new (and maybe even talk about it to other PHP developers).

Inspire attendees, not only talk about the same subjects over and over again. KEEP the userbase, get them enthusiastic, have them bring new people with.. GROW your userbase, not splinter it..

On the IBuildings blog there's a new post by Soila Patajoki taking a brief look at TestFest events around the world.

The PHP TestFest is a gathering by PHP enthusiasts that get together to write automated test cases for PHP. These test cases help prevent future incompatibilities and bugs in PHP. The event has grown global over the course of the years, with user groups everywhere in the world participating.

She points out some of the European TestFest events that Ibuildings is helping out with including ones in London, Manchester and Belgium. You can find out more about TestFest-ing and see if there's a group in your area participating on the TestFest page off the main PHP QA site.

In a new post to his blog today Michelangelo talks about a joint effort between the Dutch PHP user group phpGG and the PHP Belgium group - BugHuntDay.org.

Fixing bugs is mostly considered the least favorite part of open-source projects, which often delays a good project growing into a great one. And this is a pity, because fixing bugs can really be fun and is very educative.

The Bug Hunt Day is planned for November 8th (2008) for those in the Netherlands. Here's how it'll go:

A typical BugHuntDay is started with a small presentation by a code contributor to that framework or library, followed by a group effort fixing bugs while being assisted by experts. This way attendees learn a bit of the framework or library, the process of fixing bugs and the process of quality assurance (QA).

If you're around the Roosendaal area and want to participate, check out the Bug Hunt Day website and find out how to get involved.

The Symfony blog has officially announced this year's symfony camp happening September 12th and 13th:

This year again, DOP organizes the symfony camp. The event takes place on the 12th and 13th of September. This is a unique opportunity to meet the community. The camp will start with a training on symfony 1.1, given by Nicolas Perriault (symfony 1.1 release manager). The second day is packed with great talks.

Speakers already lined up for the event include Dustin Whittle, Fabian Lange, Lambert Beekhuis and Ian Christian. Check out the official site for more information on where it's happening and to reserve your spot today.

If you're in the area of The Netherlands and you're into PHP, consider yourself lucky - just look at all the events that Ivo Jansch mentions in one of his more recent blog entries:

PHP is still growing in The Netherlands (according to nexen.net, 46% of Dutch domains use PHP). A good indicator of PHP's growth is the number of conferences and other events that are organized this year. [...] This year alone, there are already 6 major (>50) events; 3 done, 3 to go.

Some of the events (like Dutch Joomla Days and the PHP Business Seminar) have already passed but there's still a chance to get in on a few others like Kings of Code and the Dutch PHP Conference.

Cal Evans (of the Zend Developer Zone) has written up a summary of an event he recently attend and spoke at in the Netherlands - the PHP Business Seminar.

I've just returned from my second trip to the Netherlands and, as with the first one, I had a wonderful time. This time, I was honored to speak at the PHP Business Seminar put on as a joint project by IBuildings and Sogeti.

He talks about the conference, some of the presentations (a bit of which he caught, they were all in Dutch) and his experience presenting - twice, once with Red Bull and once without. If you want a bit more detail (and the slides from his talk) check out Cal's post on his personal blog too.