Джерело:
blogs.perl.org
Дата публікації:
02/07/2025 02:00
Постійна адреса новини:
http://www.vsinovyny.com/12069154
TPRC Greenville 2025
02/07/2025 02:00 // blogs.perl.org
I had the pleasure of attending The Perl & Raku Conference (TPRC) 2025 in Greenville, SC as a volunteer. As always, opinions are my own.
The Conference
The conference went quite well. Unfortunately, a major weather event disrupted flights across the US, particularly around Atlanta, causing travel issues for some attendees and speakers. This led to a few talk cancellations.
We adopted it by consolidating the two talk tracks into one. There was still a diverse range of topics, and judging by the audience reactions, some of the talks were very well received.
The conference was attended by 40-50 people.
Main Room
The Venue
The event was hosted at a Holiday Inn Express in Greenville, which turned out to be an excellent choice. The hotel was clean, recently renovated (following flood repairs last year), and very reasonably priced: $139 + tax per night for a suite. The staff were quite friendly and accommodating. It also proved to be a great low-cost venue for hosting a conference - more on that below.
The location was practical. Although rural, there were a few walkable restaurants nearby. Downtown Greenville was just a 15-minute drive away, and Lyft was inexpensive and reliable. As a bonus, the hotel is within walking distance of a Flixbus stop, which made my return trip to Atlanta easy.
Special thanks to Ruth, our conference chair, for offering airport rides to several of us.
Downtown Greenville
Supporting the Local Community
This year, we also made an effort to give back to the local community. Ruth partnered with a local food bank, and through a raffle event, we raised $1,040, which equates to over 4,160 meals!
Conference dinner was catered from a local restaurant nearby.
We also featured local beer and wine, which was a nice addition. I tried Cheerwine, a local cherry soda, for the first time.
Local Beer Selection (Find Raku)
A Leaner, Smarter Conference Model
Warning: opinion ahead.
As I wrote before, financial sustainability has been a challenge for The Perl and Raku Foundation in recent years. Particularly, the foundation has been spending more on conferences than it earned overall. For example, in 2024, the foundation spent $50k on a conference when the foundation's annual income was only $40k, which isn't sustainable when they also spent $100k in grants.
This year, Ruth did a fantastic job transforming the event into a break-even conference. We kept costs low in several key ways:
1. The hotel provided the conference space at almost no cost. They provided breakfast and coffee.
2. We were allowed to bring our own food and drink, so volunteers sourced everything affordably from places like Walmart.
3. We avoided typical hotel surcharges we've seen in the past (like $40k for food or $10k for A/V).
4. All the equipment was rented externally and managed in-house.
Of course, a more economical setup meant more labor work - but thanks to Rich, a wonderful local volunteer with professional sandwich-making experience, we managed well! He led the team in preparing custom lunches on-site.
We also restructured the event to a 3-day format (2 days of talks + 1 day of classes/hackathon), instead of the previous 5-day model. I recall it was my idea, and while it was controversial, it worked smoothly in the end.
Preparing Lunch
Renting Stage Kits
Attendance
The number of attendees is declining. The conference had ~100 attendees in 2023, ~80 in 2024, and we had around 40-50 in 2025.
There are many contributing factors; Perl's decline across industries, increased preference for virtual events, and challenges with international travel this year. Unlike previous locations such as Houston, Greenville doesn't have a strong base of local Perl companies.
While a smaller crowd has its trade-offs, such as smaller hallway tracks and a narrower pool of speakers, optimistically it also allowed for deeper connections among attendees.
Looking Ahead to 2026
I have little idea how our 2026 conference will look like. There is a discussion to hold it in Michigan, also I heard a suggestion to make it a Perl-only event. We also liked this venue so a return to Greenville is definitely on the table.
The foundation should not lose money to hold conferences, so naturally Greenville is a good choice. I'm eager to learn if there are other hotels that enable us to hold a low-cost conference and are close enough to an airport.
Whatever we decide, one thing is clear: the key to a successful conference is great volunteers, especially during the event itself. If you're interested in helping out, I encourage you to reach out.
Lastly, I appreciate these sponsors who support TPRF: DuckDuckGo, Webpros, Proxmox, Fastmail, SUSE, e-card, and Grant Street Group.
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