Tropical.rb - The Challenges of Organizing a Ruby/Rails Conference [EN]

Versão em Português

Introduction

My goal with this post is to help other event organizers by sharing a bit about the challenge of organizing the Tropical.rb - The Latin America Rails Conference.

For those who didn't attend, this video highlights some moments from the conference:

Technology events have been a part of my life for quite some time. My first company was an event startup, Eventick. Because of it, I had the opportunity to participate in, or even help with the accreditation of, several events. Some examples are: BrazilJS, AgileTrends, FrontInSampa, FrontInVale, FrontInBh, RubyConf, and some international events like Rails World, DPW, and Heroku's Waza. In fact, it was at Waza in 2013 that I met Matz, the creator of Ruby. ❤️

The Beginning of the Plan

Tropical.rb already existed, and its last edition had taken place in 2015. It started as a local event organized by the Recife Ruby user group, FrevoOnRails. At the time, the event was called "AbrilProRuby". I organized the second regional edition of the event and helped with the first national edition, which was conceived by Lailson Bandeira and also had Thiago Diniz as an organizer.

At the beginning of 2023, I was missing Ruby/Rails events in Brazil. Regional meetups were not happening regularly, and there was very little talk about Ruby. The main promoters of Rails in Brazil, Fábio Akita and Plataformatec, were no longer focused on Ruby. It was clear to me that events needed to be revived.

The first major challenge of organizing an event is that most of them operate at a loss. The last edition of Tropical.rb, in 2015, had a loss of R$ 250,000 (USD 50k) in today's values. RubyConf, TheConf, FrontInSampa, and so many other conferences have incurred losses, often with the organizer bearing the cost.

When I brought this idea to my partner, Leo Cavalcanti, he agreed immediately. As he likes to say, Linkana is an independent and profitable startup. We decided to take the risk and organize a conference, even though our clients weren't developers, because we knew it was something important to do. With that, Linkana took on the financial risk of the event.

The first person I reached out to for help was Rafael França, a member of the Rails Core and a long-time friend.

França immediately agreed to help organize the event, and that made all the difference. His network and the credibility that the conference gained by being co-organized by a Rails Core member were invaluable. A few months later, Ju Dias and Débora Fernandes joined the team.

Seeking Speakers

A significant part of the conference experience is the people you meet or reconnect with. At the best events I've attended, in addition to networking, I've learned a lot from the talks. To get the attention of the most famous keynotes, I knew I had to invite them personally. I was one of the "lucky ones" who managed to get a ticket to the first edition of Rails World in Amsterdam.

I met most of the speakers who came from abroad in person. I prepared a kit with a shirt, flip-flops, cachaça, and a beach bag. I also brought several shirts that I distributed to Brazilians and Rails Core members. The event was "invaded" by Tropical.rb, and everyone was wondering what that purple shirt was. Even DHH got his:

With the event's promotion on https://rubyconferences.org/, newsletters, and Twitter, we received over 100 talk proposals. Another important point for the conference was defining our focus well. Like Rails World, we wanted to talk about the framework's future and startups. Having Rafael França as one of the reviewers was very important; he told us what was or wasn't aligned with Rails 8.

To make the speakers feel at home, we thought of several details. For the speakers who didn't speak Portuguese, the organizers and I personally picked them up from the airport and took them to the hotel. The hotel we chose was an international chain that the speakers were familiar with and was close to the event venue. Thiago Diniz was responsible for taking care of all the speakers during their stay.

Many foreign companies have policies to cover travel and accommodation costs if their employees are selected to speak. This helps a lot since it's unfeasible for the event to cover these expenses. For the others, we covered the accommodation costs.

Ticket Sales

To sell tickets, I was inspired by Rails World, which focused heavily on promotion before starting sales. This worked very well for us too. With the keynotes confirmed, we launched a website where people could express interest in attending, and I started participating in meetups, podcasts, and YouTube lives. We reactivated our LinkedIn and Twitter.

With the audience already waiting, we opened sales, and in less than three days, all tickets sold out. Between tickets and sponsors, we had an audience of approximately 400 people.

Seeking Sponsors

Because our team was small, we didn't parallelize initiatives, and finding sponsors was the last task. This turned out to be the best thing we did. It was my biggest challenge by far, both because I'm not a salesperson and due to the event's history. By the time we approached potential sponsors, we already had the keynotes announced and all tickets for the general public sold out.

Companies that sponsor events do not have unlimited resources. They need to choose which events to sponsor. We created a well-crafted document listing everything included in the package and mapped several companies that use Ruby on Rails. With good sponsorship material, sold-out tickets, and confirmed keynotes, it was easier than I expected. Unlike the last edition, companies using Rails are now much more mature, and there is a shortage of Ruby professionals in the market. They want to associate their brand with the event to strengthen their employer brand. We also received support from companies that sell to developers and others from abroad interested in hiring in Brazil. In the end, we managed to break even.

Another important factor is that we opened a non-profit association, "Rubi nos Trilhos do Brasil," so we could issue invoices to sponsors, ensuring that resources were dedicated exclusively to the event. No organizer or volunteer received any compensation from the event. In the end, we had 19 amazing sponsors!

The Day of the Event

Choosing the venue and format was crucial. I wanted to associate Rails with startups, so I chose Cubo Itaú, the largest startup hub in Latin America. A modern auditorium with excellent infrastructure.

One of the challenges was taking on the responsibility of co-presenting the event. To tackle this, Larissa Santana and the consultancy Calor helped me a lot.

Besides the traditional talks, we had some unique initiatives.

The first was a panel with four founders of the largest Brazilian companies that use Rails: Wagner Narde from Vindi, Carlos Brando from Enjoei, Thiago Scalone from CloudWalk, and Bruno Ghisi from RD Station. Many developers aspire to become entrepreneurs, and I wanted people to see that Rails remains one of the best frameworks for launching a startup.

The other panel was about the Rails Foundation. The creation of the foundation was one of the most important initiatives for the Rails community. I believed that people in Latin America needed to know about the foundation, and the foundation needed to understand the demands and needs of Ruby developers outside the North America/Europe axis. It was incredible to have Amanda Perino, Executive Director of the Rails Foundation, Bruno Miranda, a Brazilian and a member of the Rails Foundation board, and Robby Russel as the question moderator.

One of the event's goals was to strengthen the community, so all the organizers of Ruby/Rails meetups in Brazil were honored on stage, along with Fábio Akita, who created and organized RubyConfBR for many years. Additionally, we had the opportunity to honor Paulo Fagiani, organizer of the historic Oxente Rails event, who sadly passed away a few months later.

Finally, in collaboration with Le Wagon, we selected junior developers recently graduated from the bootcamp to create a catalog of companies that use Ruby on Rails in Brazil, presented on stage at the event. Many team members got their first jobs during this process.

These four initiatives certainly made Tropical.rb even more unique.

In Conclusion

Organizing tech events is about giving what is most precious: your time. It's crucial that your motivation is in the right place. It's not about ROI (Return on Investment), nor is it about career marketing. It's about contributing to something you believe in.

Links to the talks: Watch the talks here

Links to the photos: See the photos here

We hope to see you all in 2025!

If you want to discuss event organization, I'm available on LinkedIn and Twitter.