Southwest Fox 2024 is a go!

Thanks to our generous speakers stepping up and shouldering some of the financial risks, additional sponsorship, and our hope that the community will respond with more registrations, we are announcing that Southwest Fox 2024 will go on as planned in-person and virtually September 26-29, 2024. That said, it is with heavy hearts that we announce this is the final in-person Southwest Fox conference that we are going to put on as it’s clear the economics no longer work. Our plan is to move forward with Virtual Fox Fests in the future.

This is your last chance to hang out with the Fox gang in Phoenix, so if you were thinking about attending sometime, this is the time.

Southwest Fox 2024: In-person, STILL in jeopardy

We really want to have an in-person conference. If you plan to be at the in-person conference, please register today if you have not already done so. We are still short of our minimum to make the in-person side of the conference happen by six people. Even if we get six more in-person registrations, we are taking a financial risk. If you plan to attend virtually, please register for the virtual conference as this impacts the choice we have to make in the coming days.

Plus, if you register now, you get the early-bird discount, which expires on August 1.

For those signed up for the in-person conference, do not make plane reservations until we announce the decision for the in-person conference, which we expect to make this Friday, July 26th.

The conference takes place September 26-29, 2024 in Scottsdale, Arizona and we really hope you can be there. Head over to the registration Web site now: https://geekgatherings.com/Registration

Southwest Fox 2024: In-person, in jeopardy

We really want to have an in-person conference. We love the chance to see members of our community face-to-face and interact both during conference hours and outside them. If that matters to you, we need you to show up this year. Without at least 15 more in-person registrations by July 26, we will have to switch to an all-virtual conference, and we won’t be planning any future in-person events. For those signed up for the in-person conference, do not make plane reservations until we announce the decision for the in-person conference, which we expect to make soon after July 26th.

The conference takes place September 26-29, 2024 in Scottsdale, Arizona and we really hope you can be there. Head over to the registration Web site today: https://geekgatherings.com/Registration

Southwest Fox 2024: Super-saver Deadline Approaches

Hear that sound? Tick, tick, tick, tick...

That's the countdown clock at Geek Gatherings getting closer to the Super-saver deadline for Southwest Fox! June 30th is this Sunday and we thought we would pass along one more reminder just in case you forgot to add it your reminder list or put a yellow sticky note on your monitor. We still need people to register to make the in-person side of the conference happen.

Urgent: do not make plane reservations until we announce the decision for the in-person conference, which we expect to make in the coming weeks.

The conference takes place September 26-29, 2024 in Scottsdale, Arizona and we really hope you can be there. If you really want to attend in-person, we would hate to see you miss out on a seat in the room (the in-person limit is 40 registrations). Whether you plan to attend in-person or virtually, surely you don’t to lose out on the Super-saver discount ($200 for in-person or $100 for virtual).

Head over to the registration Web site today: https://geekgatherings.com/Registration

If you’ve already registered, we thank you. Please help us remind fellow developers who have been procrastinating about the looming deadline by sharing this email, spreading it on social media, or posting on a forum how great a previous Southwest Fox or Virtual Fox Fest conference was for you? You can also spread the word by telling others you're going on our Facebook event.

Nitty-Gritty Details

Check out our list of amazing speakers and dig into our sessions. Follow the news about the conference and our blog.

Southwest Fox 2023 Videos

We plan to release the videos for the following sessions in early July on our YouTube channel:

• Advanced Reporting with Microsoft Excel
• ParallelFox 2.0
• Logging: Clear Cut Solutions for Your Apps

As an added incentive, if the Early-Bird registrations are good (meaning we are not chewing our fingernails), we will also release these sessions at the same time: 

• Optimize Your IDE: Take Full Advantage of Thor Tools Part 1
• Team Git: Collaboration Made Easy
• Modern Authentication with VFP

Contact Us

• Interested in being a sponsor? Contact our sponsor representative: sponsors@geekgatherings.com 
• If you have ideas or suggestions for this year's Southwest Fox, please email them to: info@geekgatherings.com
• If you have a friend who wants to be on our mailing list, please tell them to go to the conference home page and sign up https://swfox.net.
• Call: 586.254.2530

Please beat the rush so we still have some fingernails left when July begins!

We appreciate all the support people have shown for the in-person conference with early registrations. We look forward to getting many more this week as we get closer to make the "in-person go" decision; otherwise, we will be all virtual. If you’re planning to attend the virtual conference, please register now as it helps in our decision-making process.

Southwest Fox 2024 Registration Opens

We have officially opened registration for Southwest Fox 2024! The highly acclaimed developer conference is September 26-29, 2024. 

Southwest Fox is a hybrid conference: in-person and virtual. The in-person event will be held at the Hampton Inn & Suites Phoenix-Scottsdale, the same location as last year, in the Phoenix suburb of Scottsdale. The virtual event will use the RingCentral platform (the same platform we use for Virtual Fox Fest). All sessions will be presented in a single room and will be streamed to the virtual event and recorded. This year we plan to add a second screen so people can see the presentations easier from the back of the room.

The in-person conference room is small, so we have to limit registrations for the in-person event to the first 40 people who register. Those who are not in the first 40 will be added to a wait list or can decide to register for the virtual event. The virtual side of Southwest Fox can handle an unlimited number of attendees. If you really want to attend in-person, we suggest you register as soon as practical. 

Super-Saver Registration for in-person, which saves you $200 (or $100 for virtual), is available only through June 30th, so don’t wait. Head over to the registration Web site today: https://geekgatherings.com/Registration. You’ll have to select either the in-person event or the virtual event.

Registration fees start at $599 for in-person and $349 for virtual. More details are available on the conference’s registration page.

Important hotel details

We have a limited number of rooms at the hotel for those attending in-person. We will send you the link once we process your registration. 

Flights

Please do NOT book your flights yet. Our hotel contract gives us some flexibility to see how registration is going before we’re absolutely committed. We’ll let you know when it’s time to book.

Here is what you can expect from Southwest Fox:

1. Terrific selection of sessions from great presenters.
2. A total of 15 regular conference topics to pack your days with learning opportunities and inspiration.
3. Half-days on Thursday and Sunday for a more relaxed schedule and to make it easier for the virtual attendees.
4. Lunch Friday and Saturday for all in-person attendees.

The conference website has been updated with this year’s information and includes:

• News about the sessions and speakers.
• The general schedule.
• Specifics about the conference hotel.
• The conference blog where you can find our thoughts and perspectives.
• The link to our X (Twitter) feed.
• Opportunities for conference sponsorship.
• Ways you can help us promote the conference.

Contact Us

• Interested in being a sponsor? Contact our sponsor representative: sponsors@geekgatherings.com
• If you have ideas or suggestions for this year’s Southwest Fox, please email them to: info@geekgatherings.com.
• If you have a friend who wants to be on our mailing list, please tell them to go to the conference home page and sign up: https://swfox.net 

Make sure to share the news about the conference to all your developer friends. We appreciate any help with marketing and word of mouth is one of the best ways to spread the news about our conference.

Southwest Fox 2024: Call for Speakers

We're excited to offer you Southwest Fox 2024, a hybrid conference; you decide whether to come in-person or watch online! The in-person event will be held at the Hampton Inn & Suites Phoenix-Scottsdale. The virtual event will use the Hopin platform (the same platform we use for Virtual Fox Fest). You can get more information on the Southwest Fox Conference Web page.

The conference will take place September 26-29, 2024. 

Call for Speakers

We've issued the Call for Speakers for Southwest Fox. If you are interested in presenting, please read the document referenced on that page to learn about submitting sessions.

Geek Gatherings 2024: Save the Dates!

We have locked in our dates for our 2024 conferences and hope you will save the dates to attend.

Our one-day Virtual Fox Fest 2024 will be Wednesday, May 8, 2024. It still has the same great features everyone loves about VFF: great speakers delivering great sessions, live chatting during presentations, and getting to hang out virtually with new and old friends. This event will feature classic sessions from previous conferences, updated for 2024.

We’re excited to offer you Southwest Fox 2024, a hybrid conference, September 26-29, 2024. You decide whether to come in person or watch online! The in-person event will be held at the Hampton Inn & Suites Phoenix-Scottsdale in Scottsdale, Arizona. The virtual event will use the Ring Central Hopin platform (the same platform we use for Virtual Fox Fest).

Web sites will be updated in the new year. Call for speakers will be announced later in February so get your ideas prepared.

Southwest Fox is ON!

We have good news to share today. Thanks to the support of the Visual FoxPro community and our many sponsors, Southwest Fox 2023 will proceed as planned October 19-22, 2023 in Scottsdale, AZ and online via Hopin (now owned by RingCentral).

We really appreciate all the support people have shown for the conference with registrations! That said, the decision comes with a calculated risk because we are still many registrations short of covering all the conference expenses. Please continue to spread the word to your colleagues, clients, user groups and anywhere else Visual FoxPro is spoken.

If you haven't yet registered, there's still room for you: https://geekgatherings.com/Registration.

If you've already registered for the in-person conference, you'll receive a confirmation email soon that includes a link for our discounted hotel rate. 

We are pleased to announce Geekwear by Geek Gatherings. Order your Southwest Fox gear from https://geekgatherings.logosoftwear.com/. Choose from the options shown or create your own unique SWFox-wear.

Contact Us: If you want to be a sponsor: vendors@geekgatherings.com If you have suggestions or ideas: info@geekgatherings.com If you have a friend who wants to be on our mailing list, please ask them to sign up on the conference home page to get future mailings. Call: 586.254.2530

Southwest Fox 2023: URGENT - Now or never, register today

The fate of Southwest Fox is being decided Wednesday, August 30th. Help us make the decision to keep this conference going easy. We won’t charge your credit card until September. There is no more time for you to procrastinate. It simply is now or never. If you are going to Southwest Fox this year (in-person or virtually), please head over to the registration Web site, right now, before you forget: https://geekgatherings.com/Registration

Southwest Fox 2023: URGENT Early-Bird registration deadline looms!

SET URGENT ON

WILL SOUTHWEST FOX 2023 TAKE PLACE? THAT DEPENDS ON YOU.

We have to decide by August 31 whether to hold Southwest Fox 2023 or not. So far, registration for both the in-person and virtual conferences has been slow. We have three options: a hybrid conference as planned, a virtual conference only, or no conference. If you want us to decide to hold the conference, register (for either the in-person or virtual event) before August 30. Credit cards will not be charged until September. If you are registering for the in-person conference, DO NOT book travel until you hear our decision.

Please head over to the registration Web site today: https://geekgatherings.com/Registration

Don't miss this chance to learn from the best and mix with your peers.

XSharp Free Post-Conference Session 
The XSharp Team is planning a Sunday afternoon (10/22) vendor session called "Migrating Your VFP App to .NET with X#."   Check out our Workshops page for all the up-to-date details.

If you've already registered for the conference and want to attend this session, email register@geekgatherings.com and we'll add you to the post-conference list. 

Only 65 days until we hope to gather in Scottsdale!

Southwest Fox 2023: Super-saver Deadline Approaches

Hear that sound? Tick, tick, tick, tick…

That’s the countdown clock here at Geek Gatherings getting closer to the Super-saver deadline for Southwest Fox!  July 31st is next Monday and we thought we would pass along one more reminder just in case you forgot to add it your reminder list or put a yellow sticky note on your monitor. We still need people to register to make the in-person side of the conference happen.

Urgent: do not make plane reservations until we announce the decision for the in-person conference, which we expect to make in the coming weeks.

The conference takes place October 19-22, 2023 in Scottsdale, Arizona and we really hope you can be there. We would hate to see you lose out on the $100 discount and for those who really want to attend in-person, miss out on a spot in the first 50 registrations (the room limit we have for the conference space).

Head over to the registration Web site today: https://geekgatherings.com/Registration

If you’ve already registered, we thank you. Can you help us remind fellow developers who have been procrastinating about the looming deadline by sharing this email, sharing about it on social media, or posting on a forum how great a previous Southwest Fox or Virtual Fox Fest conference was for you? You can also spread the word by telling others you’re going on our Facebook event.

Nitty-Gritty Details
Check out our list of amazing speakers and dig into our sessions. Follow the news about the conference and our blog.

Contact Us:

• If you want to be a sponsor: vendors@geekgatherings.com
• If you have suggestions or ideas: info@geekgatherings.com
• If you have a friend who wants to be on our mailing list please send them to https://swfox.net where they can sign up to get future mailings.
• Call: 586.254.2530

Please beat the rush so we still have some fingernails left when August begins!

We appreciate all the support people have shown for the in-person conference with early registrations. We look forward to getting many more this week as we need them to make the “in-person go” decision; otherwise, we will be all virtual. If you’re planning to attend the virtual conference, please register now as it helps in our decision-making process.

Time to Register for Southwest Fox Fest

Speakers and sessions for Southwest Fox 2023 have been announced, and registration is open! As I discussed earlier, we have a limit on the number of people who can attend in-person, and in less than 24 hours since registration opened, 1/3 of the spots have already been taken. So, if you're considering attending in-person, register today or you'll likely miss out! Also, Super-Saver Registration, which saves you $100, is available only through July 31st, so don't wait. When registering, be sure to select the proper conference on the registration site: choose either the in-person event or the virtual event.

Southwest Fox 2023

While Virtual Fox Fest (VFF) has been a great way to learn about our favorite development environment and get together virtually, four years is a long time to not see each other in-person. Geek Gatherings is pleased to announce Southwest Fox 2023 (SWFox), October 19-22, our first in-person conference since 2019.

For a variety of reasons, it'll be different this year.

• We have a new venue: Hampton Inn & Suites Phoenix-Scottsdale in Scottsdale, AZ. It's closer to the airport than the SanTan Elegante Conference & Reception Center in Gilbert so it's a little more convenient, but still close to lots of restaurants for after-hours socializing.
  
  
• SWFox will be a hybrid conference: in-person and virtual. When you register, you choose how you'll attend. The virtual event will use the Hopin platform (the same platform we use for Virtual Fox Fest). Sessions are presented live and both streamed to the virtual event and recorded.
  
  
• Videos will be available to attendees (in-person and virtual) after the conference. We will not be making videos available to the community for free as we've done with VFF because we really need people to attend to cover our costs.
  
  
• In order to provide a 15-minute Q & A session for virtual attendees after each presentation, and to provide 15 minutes for the incoming speaker to set up, there will be 30 minutes between sessions rather than 15 minutes as we've done at past conferences. Because of that, we can only fit five sessions per day rather than six, so we've added a half-day to the conference so we can provide the same number of conference sessions (15) as we've had with past conferences. It now starts with registration Thursday morning, an opening session early Thursday afternoon, followed by three conference sessions. The conference goes all day Friday and Saturday, Sunday morning, and finishes with a closing session Sunday afternoon. See the schedule overview for more details. We actually like this schedule and think it's a little more relaxed than at previous conferences.
  
  
• Because we're not sure how many people will attend in-person this year, we didn't want to pick a large, expensive venue. As a result, we have a limit of 50 in-person attendees (there's no limited on virtual attendees). That's not one of those "we're giving an artificially low number to drive up demand" kind of limits; it's a hard limit based on the size of the conference room. So, if you want to attend in-person, be sure to sign up as soon as possible after registration opens in early July. If you miss the cut-off of 50 people, you can always attend virtually.
  
  
• All sessions are presented in a single room. An advantage of this format is that there's no chance of missing any sessions because they're scheduled opposite other sessions you also want to see.  Another is that it eliminates the searching for the next room and trying to find a seat. Also, each speaker only presents one session once rather than two sessions twice, so it's a lot easier on them!
  
  
• Hampton includes hot breakfast with your hotel room charge (Rick Schummer tried it when checking out possible venues a couple of months ago and said it was great). Lunch will be provided on Friday and Saturday (likely deli-style but we're still working out the details). Because we aren't providing as many meals, and have limited other costs as much as we can, registration is less expensive than for previous SWFox conferences. Details will be announced in early July.

One thing that won't be different is a great line up of speakers, inspiring session topics, and the chance to hang out with new and old friends!

We're looking for speakers. If you think you have a topic other developers would be interested in, see our Call for Speakers page and submit a session proposal.

See you in October!

Virtual Fox Fest 2021 (October) Follow-up

Here are some follow-up notes about Virtual Fox Fest 2021 (October):

• Videos for all presentations are now available on YouTube for free to everyone, as our contribution to the VFP community. Be sure to subscribe to our channel.
• If you didn't attend Virtual Fox Fest and want materials (white papers and sample code) for the presentations, go to  https://geekgatherings.com/Registration and "register" for the conference. You're not really registering since it's over, but in the Registration Fees section of the registration page, you'll see "Virtual Fox Fest Session Materials" for both of the 2021 events. There's also an opportunity to sponsor Virtual Fox Fest, which means your name will be listed on our Sponsors page.
• We have tentative dates for an in-person Southwest Fox conference next year: October 27-30, 2022, at the same location as previous years: the SanTan Conference Center in Gilbert, Arizona. At this point, we don't know whether we'll be able to have an in-person event, but hope springs eternal!
• If you didn't attend Virtual Fox Fest, check out our Facebook page and see what you missed, then plan to attend a future one so you can join in the fun.

Time to Register for Virtual Fox Fest

Thanks to all who have already registered for Virtual FoxFest (May 6, 2021); we appreciate your support and our speakers are excited to share their sessions with you soon.

That said, we know there are those who have not registered and have good intentions to do so before the conference starts. Please do so sooner than later. It literally takes minutes to register. Here is the link: http://geekgatherings.com/Registration

Our Virtual Fox Fest shirt store has been updated for 2021! Check it out at https://geekgatherings.logosoftwear.com/. You can choose your favorite color or put the VFF logo on any item LogoSoftwear sells. You’ll find instructions for customizing your purchase at https://virtualfoxfest.com/geekwear.aspx.

After much consideration, we’ve decided to stick with a virtual event this fall. It will be structured similarly to Virtual Fox Fest 2020. Dates will be announced later. We’re already looking forward to a live Southwest Fox in 2022.

Virtual Fox Fest 2020: All new virtual Fox conference in October

We're disappointed to announce that due to COVID-19, the annual Southwest Fox Conference is on hiatus in 2020. However, we’re excited to offer you Virtual Fox Fest, an online conference presenting the latest in Microsoft Visual FoxPro development techniques and interoperability with other technologies. This conference provides a venue for VFP experts to come together virtually to learn more about how our fellow programmers are using and extending VFP. For details about Virtual Fox Fest, please see https://virtualfoxfest.com.

We've issued the Call for Speakers for Virtual Fox Fest. If you are interested in presenting, please read the document referenced in that page and consider submitting sessions. If you previously submitted sessions for Southwest Fox 2020, you don’t need to resubmit for Virtual Fox Fest (but feel free to delete or revise your prior submissions or submit new sessions).

Southwest Fox 2020 Call for Speakers Deadline Extended

We understand you're probably not thinking much beyond the next few weeks or months, but we're still planning Southwest Fox 2020 on the assumption that the current crisis will be over by November. In light of that, we're extending the speaker submission deadline to Monday, April 13. If you have something to share with our developer community, read the Call for Speakers document (http://www.swfox.net/CallForSpeakers.pdf) and then use the Submission site (https://geekgatherings.com/Submission) to send us your session proposals. We look forward to your ideas.

Southwest Fox 2020 Call for Speakers

We've issued the Call for Speakers for Southwest Fox 2020. If you're interested in presenting, please read the document referenced in that page and consider submitting sessions via the Geek Gatherings Submission Web site.

Southwest Fox 2019

If you missed Southwest Fox 2019, you missed a seriously great time. Check out the hundreds of photos (Facebook and Google Photos) our Social Media Manager Jody Meyer took and watch the Keynote presentation by Kevin Ragsdale on YouTube: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

Congratulations to the 2019 VFPX Administrators Award winner Christof Wollenhaupt for his FoxMock project. Congratulations to the 2018 Speaker Award winner Tuvia Vinitsky.

We announced dates for next year's conference already, and it’s a little later than our usual October dates: November 12 - 15, 2020. I hope to see you in Phoenix next year!

INTL is now open source!

Steven Black’s INTL Toolkit has been the tool of choice for years for developers needing to create international and multilingual applications. At the Southwest Fox 2019 keynote presentation, Cathy Pountney announced on behalf of Steve that he’d generously made INTL an open source project. Thanks, Steve, for this great contribution (as well as your many others) to our community!