Summary

Given that this was the first conference that Appeon had hosted, I thought it went extremely well.  There were a few areas for improvement, which I will address at the end of this article. 

Attendance was good and diverse.  It seemed like there were a significant number of people attending from outside of the United States.   (Appeon later indicated that 24% of the attendees were from outside North America, 4% from Asia, and 10% each from Europe and Latin America).  There was a lot of energy and excitement on the attendees part, and the sessions overall appeared to have been high quality and well attended.  The facilities were great, if a bit small, and the services provided by Appeon to facilitate travel between the downtown hotels and the conference location were a great touch.  If you didn't attend this year I would highly recommend it next year, particularly given we should have some exciting new 2018 features to see next year. 

Facility

The conference was held Sept 25th through 27th at the Harris Conference Center in Charlotte, NC.  The facility is located on the campus of the Central Piedmont Community College, just a few miles from the Charlotte Douglas International airport.  Most of the attendees stayed at the Holiday Inn in downtown Charlotte or other downtown hotels.  Appeon provide shuttle busses that ran every 30 minutes between the Holiday Inn and the conference center at the beginning and end of each day of the conference.The keynote, lunches and some sessions were held in the Full Conference Hall.  Other sessions were run simultaneously in the Ash, Birch, Cypress and Maple conference rooms. 

 

RegistrationI'm used to conferences that allow registration the day before the conference begins.  Such was not the case here.  Instead registration opened at 8:00 the first day of the conference and the keynote didn't begin until 9:30, but the registration went smoothly.BreakfastsDuring registration and each morning the next two days breakfast was offered.  It was the standard carbs and fruit offering typical for such events.  Doesn't quite fit my diet so I made other arrangements, but most other attendees seemed content.