I subscribe to almost no Ruby blogs anymore! :-) But I had seen your post once before. In my defence I said "or" and Ruby Manor has seemed to me, wrongly or rightly, to be in the "unique experience" group (where I'd also include JSConf and RubyFringe).
By 'full scale' I did mean something reasonably specific, yes: a typically annual multi-day event with at least a few hundred attendees, a large numbers of sessions (or a very strong single track) focused on the topic at hand, a commercial presence or influence, and a sizeable number of well known speakers or attendees.
RubyConf, Scotland Ruby Conference and RubyKaigi would be examples of events like that.
I don't have anything against smaller or more creative conferences (and frequently support them!) but they tend to emphasize socializing rather than business. With a family and a business to run, by necessity I go to conferences 50% for business and 40% for networking, and 10% for socializing. So if I can't do business there, it's a really hard sell in terms of time and leaving my wife stranded with the kids.
This might be unfair to Ruby Manor, and sorry if it is, but I got the impression Ruby Manor would be more like a fun day out for my personal enjoyment than one I can justify to my wife, daughter, business and the tax man. That's really the line I'm drawing.
(I had forgotten Rails Underground so thanks for bringing it up. It did tick a lot of boxes - just a shame it didn't run again(!))
By 'full scale' I did mean something reasonably specific, yes: a typically annual multi-day event with at least a few hundred attendees, a large numbers of sessions (or a very strong single track) focused on the topic at hand, a commercial presence or influence, and a sizeable number of well known speakers or attendees.
RubyConf, Scotland Ruby Conference and RubyKaigi would be examples of events like that.
I don't have anything against smaller or more creative conferences (and frequently support them!) but they tend to emphasize socializing rather than business. With a family and a business to run, by necessity I go to conferences 50% for business and 40% for networking, and 10% for socializing. So if I can't do business there, it's a really hard sell in terms of time and leaving my wife stranded with the kids.
This might be unfair to Ruby Manor, and sorry if it is, but I got the impression Ruby Manor would be more like a fun day out for my personal enjoyment than one I can justify to my wife, daughter, business and the tax man. That's really the line I'm drawing.
(I had forgotten Rails Underground so thanks for bringing it up. It did tick a lot of boxes - just a shame it didn't run again(!))