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Our first acts_as_conference was a great success (IMO). We did a survey to see what our attendees thought. We had 60 attendees of the 67 survey takers complete the survey. Here are the results:

Where did you travel from to attend acts_as_conference?

States represented:
Countries represented: USA, Venezuela

How would you rate the conference overall?
Awesome: 25.4%
Great: 52.2%
It was okay: 20.9%
Lame: 1.5%

Did the speakers we had influence your decision to attend the conference?
Yes: 73%
No: 27%

Please provide an overall rating for our speakers.
Quality of talk: 57.1%
Depth of knowledge: 49.2%
Fun to listen to: 52.4%

*Used a scale of awesome to sub-par - great rating is shown.

Did the topics presented influence your decision to attend the conference?
Yes: 66.7%
No: 33.3%

How would you rate the quality of topics?
Awesome: 19%
Great: 57.1%
Okay: 22.2%
Lame: 1.6%

How would you rate the level of the topics?
Newbie: 20.6%
Intermediate: 82.5%
Expert: 17.5%

How would you rate the depth of the topics?
Ocean: 4.8%
Lake: 60.3%
Pond: 30.2%
Puddle: 4.8%

Did the sponsors we had effect your decision to attend the conference?
Yes: 12.9%
No: 87.1%

Some feedback we received (unedited)

• Excellent Job. Please make lunch break longer. Restaurants withing walking distance had long waiting lists on Saturday and there was insufficient time to travel anywhere else.
• First of all, I appreciate the fact that you took the initiative to put the conference together, so please don’t take the feedback the wrong way. With that said, I was hoping to see more examples of code and working projects, rather than hearing about theories and certain peoples’ philosophies. for example: The Rails on Air talk was great because it was an actual demonstration. It would have been nice to have seen demos of Merb. I also like Luke Franl’s talk because he mentioned specific plugins. On the other hand, I love The Rails Way book, but I found Obie’s keynote to be totally worthless. I didn’t feel that there was much to Charles Brian Quinn’s presentation either. In closing, I’ll just say that I’d like to see more code and demos and less talk and theorizing. But again, I REALLY appreciate your putting the conference on..
• Although I rated the conference as “just OK” I benefited greatly by meeting many new contacts in the RoR community. I had to leave during the multimedia presentation on Saturday so I missed the “in the trenches” and the closing keynote. Perhaps greater emphasis on how RoR is getting the job done in business and web 2.0 apps rather then focusing so much on the “inerds.” Birds of a feather small groups could focus on specialty topics allowing general topics to concentrate on the proliferation of Rails (i.e. evangelizing). I know that this was a stab at beginning the RoR movement here in Florida and overall I had a great experience. Bryan Liles, Dan Benjamin, and Charles Nutter provided entertaining and quite educational talks. Liles’ delivery and style kept me interested.
• As I mentioned to you, do a like 30 min of lightning talks. Plan for the conference earlier so you can get a better location. $60 cab fair sucked.
• The lunch time needs to be longer. It was hard to get back in time for the afternoon session. One thing to look at in the room is stuff hanging from the ceiling. I was up front but in the back it was tough to see the projector. Power issues were fixed but WiFi was annoying. The sign up for the charity session was not obvious. It would be nice if it was part of the conference sign up. Other than that…I would come back for sure next year!!
• definitely a different venue… that place was terribly suited for a technical conference. Between the poor internet connection, the noise coming from the kitchen through the door that wouldn’t fully close to the wedding DJ interupting the most important talk of the entire conference - not well suited at all for our needs.
• I’m new to Ruby and Rails and am only just now about to start on my first real project. I thought the level was just right. I was able to get quite a bit out of it but at the same time I don’t think it was too boring for the experts. I think topics on usability are very important but there isn’t much meat on the bone so more time spent on real world practical advice would be better. Also, sponsors, as great as they are, tend to gloss over pitfalls so some balance would be good. Overall, it was very well done. One of the best conferences I’ve attended. Thanks for all of your efforts!
• More tracks and a slightly nicer hotel.
• There was a lot of topics that covered the “you should do this” and less about the how you should do it. The methodology. Brian L. was an awesome speaker, and very entertaining; but I didn’t walk out of that session with anything I couldn’t have found with a Google search. The same went with the Rails on AIR topic and the Media in your app topic. There were some really great speakers though, and I have to admit that it was the two keynotes and the charity session with Ezra that got me excited about the conference. There was also some really great topics that I was surprised about, Neals, CBQs, and more. If I was going to suggest anything is that the topics next year should have more depth. They should be more then just slides, I want to hear the whys and hows of things.
• I won’t make the obvious complaint about wifi. While the presentations were good, it would have been great if more attendees were talking code between presentations! At one point, I was discussing the coding of an application with Greg Pederson and others were listening in, and suddenly the conference took on a very different feel for me! I found myself wishing there was more code chat. What can the conference organizers do to encourage this? I dunno! Maybe organize a hackfest or two… Maybe with a built-in contest like Rails Rumble. Who knows? More code!

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