WebhostingDay 2009 Sells Out

It’s official. WebhostingDay 2009 has completely sold out its remaining available spots.

The fifth annual version of Europe’s premier web hosting event and conference was running at pre-registration levels far above last year, and a sell out looked likely. According to show creator and organizer, Thomas Strohe, the limit of 2,500 attendees has been reached - well in advance of the show opening dates. WebhostingDay 2009 will be held from March 18-20 2009 in the city of Bruehl, Germany - which is about 25 kilometers outside Cologne. The event venue is Phantasialand which was the determining factor in the attendance levels.

Although the conference is officially sold out at this point, Mr. Strohe left open the possibility that there may be a few ”walk on” spots available at the show itself. That is, if someone who has reserved a spot does not show up, that spot may be given to someone who shows up at the show in person - but without a reserved spot. Of course that still leaves the problem of where to book your hotel room, since every room within a 25 kilometer radius of the event is booked up as well. If you were to sign up at the show, the regular attendance fee would be charged.

So how does a trade show sell out in this depressed economic environment? According to Mr. Strohe a large part of the interest is due to the ”large number of famous partner companies who contribute with talks and exhibitions.” One of those famous partner companies is Advanced Micro Devices or AMD. Sabine Eiserloh-Kaiser is Business Development Manager Enterprise with AMD and speculated on why this show has sold out, ”According to IDC, spending on IT cloud services is supposed to be 25% of IT spending growth by 2012. Cloud computing is one of the strongest growing segments in IT these days.” AMD is sponsoring the CloudCamp portion of the WebhostingDay agenda - which is focused on cloud computing.

Other attendees point to much simpler reasons, interest in networking with European colleagues and learning more about the European hosting markets. ”I’m drawn to the WebhostingDay conference by the opportunity to network with other hosting professionals,” says Phil Robinson, a programmer and developer at UK based website hosting company 34SP.com. ”In addition, I’ve never been to a web hosting conference in Germany and I’m looking forward to sampling the local culture and cuisine.”

Blogger and web hosting expert, Dimitar Avramovis the creator and current editor of the Daw Web Hosting Blog. Mr. Avramovis explained his agenda for the pre-conference period and also at the show, ”I’m originally from Bulgaria, so prior to my WebhostingDay trip I’ll be in Milan, Italy and when the conference ends I’m going to Amsterdam on business. I’m planning to have 2 days for sightseeing as well. You know Europe is a great continent. It is easy to travel and to do business. There are also thousands of wonderful historical places. I know there are some wonderful castles around Cologne (Castles of Augustusburg and Falkenlust at Bruehl), part of UNESCO world heritage. I’m definitely going to see the Cathedral. As a media representative and blogger my expectations are a little bit different than those that other participants might have. Most of them will go to WebhostingDay to do business. I’ll be there to cover the event, and to engage in networking.”

I’ll be at the show (luckily I signed up a couple of weeks ago) and look forward to meeting any of you that will also be at WebhostingDay 2009.