OT: Announcing the 8th Annual Macworld FCPUG SuperMeet, Jan 7, 2009.

Thought I'd post in the Cafe to give all of you Bay Area folks and those going to Macworld '09 a heads up. This event will sell out fast.

Tickets are now on sale for the 8th Annual Macworld FCPUG "SuperMeet" to be held January, 7, 2009 from 5pm to 11pm at the Mission Bay Conference Center in San Francisco, CA. This event promises to be the single largest gathering of Final Cut Pro users and Gurus in the world.

Tickets are only $10.00 per person and include 2 raffle tickets.

The SuperMeet will begin at 7pm with doors opening at 5pm for our "FCP Trade Show" featuring over 20 vendors, most of whom will not be on the show floor at the Macworld Expo.

As of this writing we can't make any official announcement on the agenda. We expect to do that sometime in December. But we can tell you this: There will be very special presentations by Apple, JVC, Blackmagic Design and MUCH more.

So if you are planning to go to Macworld or live in the Bay Area, you know this event is one you do not want to miss.

SuperMeets always sell out so don't be left out.

* Where? - Robertson Auditorium, Mission Bay Conference Center - UCSF
* When? Wednesday, January 7, 2009 - 7:00pm - 10:00pm (Doors open 5:00pm)
* How Much? - $10.00 per person plus 99 cent ticket fee. $15.00 at the door. Ticket will include 2 raffle tickets.
* Any raffle prizes? - Of course. $2.00 per raffle ticket or 3 for $5.00
* First 300 people through the door will be handed a Eco Friendly "Super Bag" stuffed with over $250.00 worth of useful stuff.
* Food and Drink? - Food (free) and Cash Bar will be available.

For complete details as well as a link to where to buy tickets, go to the lafcpug web site. There will be updates posted almost daily.

http://www.lafcpug.org/macworld09.html

Purchase your tickets now. There are only 600 tickets available online and when they are gone, well - they are gone.

Special thanks to BlackMagic Design, Apple, JVC and to the dozens of generous sponsors of this event.

Hope to see you all at the SuperMeet.

Michael Horton
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Looking forward to it, this is THE reason to go to MacWorld SF.

One thought: if Apple isn't going to present anything new, do they need stage time? Last year it felt like the guy came out and read a press release of old news. Given the tech level of the audience at the Supermeet, is this serving any purpose?

Specifically, I'd like to hear about:
-what is the road map for Final Cut's transition to 64-bit?
-what is the expected impact of Quicktime X (and Snow Leopard) on people making their living using Final Cut?

Apple's policy is to never talk future. And the tech level of the audience is quite diverse. There are a number of people in the audience who are brand new to FCP so even though a SuperMeet might be an event where it seems Apple preaches to the choir, there are enough people in the audience that will hear what Apple has to say for the very first time. And Apple supports these events big time, meaning they can do whatever they want.

Last year Richard talked about the new Mac Pro and workflow's with different video Codecs so that wasn't exactly reading a PR. Plus we had Steve Bayes talk about Video Codecs in relation to FCP.

[www.lafcpug.org]

Apple will be on stage again this year and I've not a clue what they will say or do. We never do.

There are tough choices to make in putting together an agenda for these shows. We rarely do product demos unless they are flat out cool or are from an Event Sponsor. We concentrate as much as we can on education and techniques and show and tells and a jolly good time. It's what makes a SuperMeet different then your usual Dog and Pony show. BUT, we have to make compromises to our event sponsors as they are the ones paying for this thing. That said, we do tell them what sort of demo works and what doesn't and what sort of audience to expect. We have a one sheet "do and don't" page we hand to these folks. We hate Keynote slides and we urge our sponsors to not use them or if they have to use them try as much as they can to eliminate all text and instead use graphics and embedded movies to make their point.

Sometimes they listen and other times they don't. When they get on stage they can do whatever they want. All we can do is get them off the stage after their alloted time.

We've been pretty lucky with most of our event sponsors and the marketing boys and girls at Apple know what works and what doesn't. They pretty much wrote the book and they got some damn good demo people at Apple. Natural performers as well as tech savvy.

Just wish these companies would give some of the girls a chance. Too much of a boys club out there and the women who attend a SuperMeet would feel a bit more included if there were women on stage.

Michael Horton
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Its true about how Apple's info influences people differently. Last year I took my boss. For me the discussion of codecs was interesting but not earth shattering. For my boss, it was like a light switch went off. By the time we got back home that night he had decided to change our show workflow from uncompressed to ProRes , dropping our offline to online workflow for a online all the time workflow and we started a move to non tape based cameras. Prior to the show ProRes wasn't on our horizon and new cameras were on the far back burner. Totally worth the cost of two tickets.