BSidesCLE - The good and the bad

Don't get me wrong, there's not much bad to take away from BSidesCLE 2015. The good includes another amazing event with fantastic sponsors:

• Event Sponsor - TrustedSec
• AfterParty Sponsor - Heureka Software
• Diamond Sponsors - Black Box, Cisco
• Gold Sponsor - Hurricane Labs
• Silver Sponsors - Emerging Technologies Group, OpenDNS and Rapid7
• A/V Partner - Something New Entertainment
• Beer Sponsor - Actual Brewery and Hardbit Solutions

Amazing speakers and talks, all of which were recorded by Irongeek and are here. Jack's and Chris' keynotes are must sees, special thanks to them for coming out and spending time with us.

Good turnout, great attendees, free ticket, free shirt, free badge, free beer, free breakfast, free bloody mary bar, free taco food truck, free dinner for those who stuck around for the afterparty. A dedicated crew from PGH even figured out and won the crypto challenge late in the evening.

With all of that free awesomeness it baffles me that we had close to 35% no shows. Was it that the next day was father's day? C'mon, the crypto key on the shirt was BADDAD in honor of the fact that there were definitely a bunch of fathers spending their time at the Grog Shop instead of with their family on father's day weekend. No, general consensus was that many people don't put value in free, since they didn't have any skin in the game they can easily blow it off without thinking about it too much.

Could be, there is merit to that. Irrespective, I now have just shy of 100 badges, bags and badass BADDAD glow in the dark shirts in boxes in my dining room waiting to go to Goodwill because whatever the reason and those dollars could have been spent on doorprizes and such for those who spent time with us this year. Do we charge next year to make it more of an investment just to get more people to show up?

I am open to suggestions, hit me on twitter @rockiebrockway

Thanks again to my co-organizers, sponsors, speakers, volunteers, the grog/bside crew and everyone who made BSidesCLE 2015 another smashing success and super fun event. I love helping to run the event and am always looking for areas of improvement.

BSidesCLE 2015 Planning

The BSidesCLE crew is back again for another round of planning an awesome event. We lost one of our partners in crime to the fact that there aren't enough hours in a day, big props to Jim Kennedy for helping us get last year's event off the ground and a huge success. We are welcoming one of our great volunteers from last year Justin Alcorn in to assist in the planning efforts in Jim's absence.

This year's event is taking place at the same phenomenal venue, the legendary indie-rock club Grog Shop and the associated BSide Liquor Lounge and Arcade, and is set for June 20, 2015. The CFP is now open http://t.co/9JwgFAJQZO. Our sponsor levels will be posted in the next couple of days, as will the tickets, and we're trying to lure in some great keynotes, more to come on that.

We're looking forward to another great event, see you there.