Imagine having the hottest, newest entertainment complex in LA as your exclusive playground. This year's MAX Bash will be taking place at L.A. LIVE--the ultimate entertainment campus located in the center of the entertainment capital of the world. It is the premiere destination for dining, music, sports, and events offering an experience like no other. True entertainment is all about being center stage and this year's event will start at the center of it all--Nokia Plaza. Serving as the hub for the evening, the plaza will offer entertainment throughout the night under the stars and gigantic LED screen displays. From Nokia Plaza, you will be able to explore four unique venues offering something for everyone.
The GRAMMY Museum pays tribute to music's rich cultural history by exploring and celebrating the enduring legacies of all forms of music--the creative process, the art and technology of the recording process and the history of the premier recognition of excellence in recorded music. You won't want to miss Michael Jackson's outfits on display , or experience first-hand the challenge and satisfaction of making great music in touch-screen, interactive studios that take you inside a real recording process. This one-of-a-kind experience is engaging, educational, celebratory and inspirational.
Lucky Strike Lanes & Lounge blends bowling with a sleek atmosphere featuring music, lights and electronic art shows. There are 18 state-of-the-art lanes, a modern bar and lounge and pool tables to boot. Socks and shoes included!
Dubbed "The House of Blues for Latin music", the Conga Room is the quintessential club experience. Designed by the award-winning Belzberg Architects, The Conga room is a contemporary space that reflects the vibrant energies of Barcelona and Mexico City. It is designed to pay homage to Latino culture with a digital mural and a sculpture created by artist and Film Director, Sergio Arau. Take your turn at learning a few dances-- from salsa and tango to regional steps from around the world--or relax in the various lounges and enjoy the music and incredible surroundings.
Looking for the ultimate sports viewing environment or wanting to test your skills in interactive games and attractions? Then ESPN Zone is the place for you! Over 100 TV screens, arcade sports simulators and video games await you. Unlimited play cards will be distributed to all guests. Cards valid for Tuesday night only.
MAX 2009 is just a few weeks away, and we're now accepting Birds-of-a-Feather (BOF) submissions. As noted previously, this year we're holding the BOFs at lunch time on all 3 days, so we have lots of slots available. If you have an idea for a BOF, let us know.
With ColdFusion 9 in public beta, we're dedicating quite a few MAX 2009 sessions to the subject this year. Here are some CF9 sessions that you should be aware of:
ColdFusion Engineering Manager Hemant Khandelwal presents a detailed look at ColdFusion 9's internals (and focuses on lots of lesser known goodies) in An Insider's Guide to ColdFusion 9 Hemant presented a version of this one at CFUnited recently, and it was one of the most popular and best attended sessions there.
ColdFusion Jedi Master Ray Camden is presenting an Introduction to ColdFusion ORM, and ColdFusion engineering team member Rupesh Kumar is presenting a follow-on session on Advanced ColdFusion ORM. Adam Lehman is also teaching a hands-on lab on the subject entitled Hands-On ORM with ColdFusion 9. Yep, three sessions on this one, it's that important.
Getting to Adobe MAX 2009 on a budget. Get a $400 discount!
Can you believe that Adobe MAX 2009 is only 10 weeks away!? Now would be a perfect time to start planning your trip. Since we are still stuck in these grim economic times, I thought it was a good idea to give you some tips on how and where to find the best prices for your MAX tickets, flights and hotels.
MAX TICKETS If you get your MAX ticket before August 31st, you can benefit from the early bird pricing. A full conference ticket will cost you $1295 or €907. That's a $200 discount on the regular pricing! That includes lunch on all conference days, access to all keynotes and evening events and access to all breakout sessions and labs. Traveling alone is no fun so there's also a group discount. If you travel in a group of three or more, your registration price per pass is only $1095 or €767.
If you're in the US, you can get $400 off the regular price when you purchase one of the listed products from the Adobe Store. This offer is only valid in the US but for since we're all friends here, I think I can do something special. If you're not in the US, you can use promo code EMA931(restrictions apply*) to get a $400 discount on the regular pricing. Your MAX ticket will then cost $1095 or €767.Register here!
FLIGHTS Finding an affordable flight is all about timing. If you book your flight well in advance, the flight will be cheaper. Generally if you also include a weekend stay, the price of your flight gets a lot cheaper. In case of MAX, I would suggest flying over on Friday October 2nd. Spending the extra days in the hotel is in most cases cheaper than the extra cost on the flight. Also check with your local travel agent. They may have a promotion for a certain airline. And also shop around! I've just checked some routes from Europe to Los Angeles and you can get a flight today for as little as €350. Which reminds me that I should probably book my flight as well ;-)
HOTEL There are a ton of motels and hotels in the greater Los Angeles area and if you're not picky, you can even find a place to stay for as little as €14 a night. There really is a lot of choice in LA and I'm sure you can easily find a place to stay in your budget range. You can find a decent hotel starting at €50/$70 a night. For hotels near the venue, check out this Google Maps link. If you don't mind a little drive in the morning, you should also check hotels a little further away from the venue. But beware that LA traffic can be brutal in the morning and evenings.
CAR RENTAL Renting a car is not a bad idea. Los Angeles is huge and public transportation can be a bit challenging. If you are going to rent a car, make sure you shop around! Compare the prices from different companies and also check with your local travel agent. They usually have even better prices than what you can get online.
If you do rent a car, make sure you also do some sightseeing. Meet up with some of your friends and colleagues to share the milage and do a little road-trip. I can really recommend going to Santa Monica and/or Venice beach.
If you want to do some shopping for some cool attire, head on down to Melrose Avenue (between Fairfax and La Brea). If you're done shopping, get yourself a cookies and cream milkshake at Johnny Rockets on the corner of Melrose and Gardner. Make sure you sit outside so you can watch the people walk by and maybe you'll even spot a celeb ;-)
I can also recommend doing some shopping at Farmers Market. Whether you want to shop for some fresh fruit, hot sauce, get some goodies at an Apple store or get a new Taschen book, Farmers Market has it all.
If this is your first time in LA, you have to walk Hollywood Boulevard and get a photo of your favorite celeb's star on the walk of fame. But know that that will only keep you busy for about half an hour.
WHERE TO FIND THE BEST DEALS I've recently discovered Momondo.com. This Danish startup finds the best travel deals for you and displays them in a nice uncluttered interface. Not sure if this is the cheapest flight available for that period? Then click on the price calendar to see if there are any cheaper flights. It will also find the best deals for hotels and car rentals. I've already mentioned it before in this post but also check with your local travel agent. You never know if they have a promotion for LA if you don't ask.
DISCLAIMER: Please note that Euro pricing is provided for information only. Exchange rates calculated with Google on July 28th 2009. Also read Google's disclaimer.
* Offer good for new Adobe MAX 2009 registrants only. Offer good for Adobe MAX 2009 full conference pass registration only. Offer cannot be combined with any other offer, package or registration code. Offer expires at 11:59pm PST on October 4, 2009. Offer is not transferable and valid only for intended recipient. Void where prohibited. Terms and conditions for Adobe MAX registrations will also apply.
Hey everyone. I wanted to post some updates on some specific sessions we are building for MAX 2009 that should be exciting for designers of any kind. At MAX this year, we are doing a lot to introduce sessions that will help you be more efficient in your design workflows, and give you the tools and skills you need to work across media and also start working in digital publishing.
For example in the "Creating an eBook for Distribution on Sony Reader Digital Book, Amazon Kindle, and Apple iPhone" session we have a step-by-step walkthrough on eBook publishing, presented by Colin Fleming that is sure to be popular.
One of the more time intensive activities with generating new business for your design team is in creating materials for your client pitches. Adobe's Michael Ninness will present the "Creating Pitch Presentations and Proposals with InDesign CS4" session that will take your pitch materials further with new interactive capabilities in InDesign to create compelling SWF and PDF presentations.
Finally, for InDesign users that want to dive into the world of interactive content, Chris Converse's hands-on lab, "Flash CS4 Professional for InDesign Users" will show you how to work in the world of pixels and work efficiently between InDesign and Flash Professional. So bring you laptop and dive in!
These are just a few of some of the new sessions we are building for designers at MAX 2009. Be sure to check out all of the sessions at http://max.adobe.com/ and see you in LA for MAX 2009!
"BOF" stands for "Birds of a Feather", and MAX BOF sessions are informal meetings on a variety of subjects. Unlike core MAX sessions, BOFs are usually not driven by Adobe and the MAX team. Rather, the community defines topics of interest, and MAX provides facilities and publicity to drive attendance. Most BOFs are focused around core products and technologies, but many are on other topics. Again, BOFs are driven by the community.
We've hosted BOFs for a long time, ever since AllaireDevCon days. But over the years BOFs have evolved ...
Year ago we added "Meet the Team" sessions, free-form open discussions like BOFs, but giving MAX attendees a chance to face product teams and ask, comment, criticize, suggest, and more. The "Meet the Team" sessions have become so popular and well attended that BOF attendance has suffered as a result.
Then, as the number of products represented at MAX grew, so did the number of "Meet the Team" sessions. This resulted in fewer available rooms for BOFs, and thus fewer BOFs, despite growing attendance and greater attendee diversity.
And on top of all that, the BOF schedules have had to change. We used to have BOFs on two nights and at two time slots each night. But in recent years we had to scale back to one night to accommodate the expanded MAX schedule. And last year the one night of BOFs started later, again because of MAX scheduling, which caused the second time slot to run way past 10:00pm, and that hurt BOF participation even more.
Still, BOFs are an important part of the MAX experience, and so we've been brainstorming BOF alternatives to better serve our attendees. And as such, this year we're going to try something quite different.
Lunch time is a full hour in the middle of the day, well, in the middle of all three days, actually. There are no sessions scheduled during lunch time, and just about every MAX attendee is in the lunch room. So what if we moved BOFs to lunch time? We'd have the big open seating area we usually have, but would also have part of the room sectioned off, round lunch tables in each, and signage designating what group is eating lunch together where. Attendees could get their lunch, head to a specific area, and then meet and chat while eating. The atmosphere would be easy and relaxed, attendees would get fed, and we could accommodate lots more BOFs over the three days of MAX. We'd leave the "Meet the Team" sessions as they are, in the evening, but move all BOFs to lunch time.
We've not hammered out all of the details yet, this is a work in progress. Still, we're interested in your thoughts on the dilemma and the proposed solution.
If you would like to propose a session or lab for MAX 2009, we have launched the official Adobe MAX 2009 - Call for Sessions and Labs. There are 34 proposed sessions/labs posted as of this morning in the Call for Sessions and Labs database. The MAX team will be reviewing the proposals ongoing and selecting the best sessions and labs to make MAX 2009 the best MAX yet.
Adobe platform evangelists Duane Nikull and Piotr Walczyszyn share a beer and discuss the benefits of attending the MAX conference. Piotr adds a special word to his compatriots about why they should come to MAX 2008 Europe in Milan too.
In addition to the great list of general sessions and labs being offered at MAX this year, we’re also putting together several “Birds of a Feather” sessions. These sessions are much less formal than the regular MAX sessions and are more of a “led discussion” than a staged presentation, so they become much more interactive and fun.
