Tags: tickets

Just look at who’s speaking at UX London this year! That’s a damned fine line-up, if I do say so myself. Which I do.

If you haven’t procured a ticket yet, allow me to gently remind you that early-bird ticket sales finish on March 14th. So if you want to avail of that bargain of a price, get in there now.

The event will be three days long. You can buy a ticket for all three days, or you can buy individual day tickets (but buying a three-day ticket works out cheaper per day).

The first day, Tuesday, June 18th, focuses on UX research.

The second day, Wednesday, June 19th, focuses on product design.

The third day, Thursday, June 20th, focuses on design ops and design systems.

Each day features a morning of inspiring talks and an afternoon of brilliant workshops. I’ll be adding titles and descriptions for all of them soon, but in the meantime, don’t dilly dally—get your ticket today!

Not long now until the last ever dConstruct. It’s on Friday of next week, that’s the 9th of September. And there are still a few tickets available if you haven’t got yours yet.

I have got one update to the line-up to report. Sadly, Léonie Watson isn’t going to be able to make it after all. That’s a shame.

But that means there’s room to squeeze in one more brilliant speaker from the vaults of the dConstruct archive.

I’m very pleased to announce that Seb Lee-Delisle will be returning, ten years after his first dConstruct appearance.

Back then he was entertaining us with hardware hacking and programming for fun. That was before he discovered lasers. Now he’s gone laser mad.

Don’t worry though. He’s fully qualified to operate lasers so he’s not going to take anyone’s eye out at dConstruct. Probably.

The last ever dConstruct will happen just over three weeks from now, on Friday, September 9th.

That’s right—if you don’t have your ticket for this event, you won’t get another chance. The conference with its eye on the future will become a thing of the past.

dConstruct is going to go out with a bang, a veritable fireworks display of mind bombs. A calligrapher, a writer, a musician, and a nueroscientist will be on the line-up alongside designers and technologists.

Here’s the schedule for the day:

8:30	Registration begins
9:50	Opening remarks
10:00	George Oates
10:30	Lauren Beukes
11:00	Break
11:30	Seb Lester
12:00	Daniel Burka
12:30	Lunch
14:00	Sarah Angliss
14:30	Matt Webb
15:00	Break
15:30	Léonie Watson
16:00	Anil Seth
16:30	Closing remarks

So the first talk starts at 10am and the last talk finishes at 4:30pm—all very civilised. Then we can all go to the pub.

There isn’t an official after-party but we can collectively nominate a nearby watering hole—the Unbarred taproom perhaps, or maybe The Hare And Hounds or The Joker—they’re all within cat-swinging distance of The Duke Of York’s.

Lunch isn’t provided but there are some excellent options nearby (and you’ll have a good hour and a half for the lunch break so there’s no rush).

The aforementioned Joker has superb hot wings from Lost Boys Chicken (I recommed the Rufio sauce if you like ‘em spicy, otherwise Thuddbutt is a good all ‘rounder).

The nearby Open Market has some excellent food options, including Casa Azul for superb Mexican food, and Kouzina for hearty Greek fare.

And the famous Bardsley’s fish’n’chips is just ‘round the corner too.

So there’ll be plenty of food for the soul to match the food for your brain that’ll be doled up at dConstruct 2022.

Alright, I’ve kept you in suspense for long enough. It’s time to reveal the magnificent line-up for dConstruct 2022.

I’ll now put names to the teasing list of descriptions I previously provided…

A technologist, product designer, and writer who defies categorisation. They’ve headed up a design studio, co-founded a start-up, and now consult on super-clever machine learning stuff. Their blog is brilliant.

This is Matt Webb. Matt previously spoke at dConstruct back in 2007, when he gave a talk called The Experience Stack

An award-winning author from South Africa whose work has recently been adapted for television. Some of their work is kind of sci-fi, some of it is kind of horror, some of it is kind of magical realism, and all of it is great.

This is Lauren Beukes. Lauren previously spoke at dConstruct in 2012, when she gave a talk called Imagined Futures.

An artist and designer who has created logos and illustrations for NASA, Apple, and Intel as well as custom typefaces for British Airways and Waitrose. A lover of letterforms, they are now one of the world’s highest-profile calligraphers posting their mesmerising work on Instagram.

This is Seb Lester.

A Canadian digital designer who has previously worked in the agency world, at Silicon Valley startups, and even venture capital. But now they’re doing truly meaningful work, designing for busy healthcare workers in low-income countries.

This is Daniel Burka. Daniel previously spoke at dConstruct back in 2008, when he gave a talk called Designing for Interaction.

A multi-instrumentalist musician, producer and robotic artist who composes for film, theatre and the concert stage. They play a mean theremin.

This is Sarah Angliss. Sarah previously spoke at dConstruct in 2013, when she gave a talk called Tech and the Uncanny.

An Australian designer and entrepreneur. They work in the cultural heritage sector and they’re an expert on digital archives. Their latest challenge is working out how to make an online photography archive last for 100 years.

This is George Oates. George previously spoke at dConstruct back in 2007, where she and Denise Wilton had a conversation called Human Traffic.

A tireless defender of web standards and co-author of the Inclusive Design Principles. They’re a member of the W3C Advisory Board and of the BIMA Inclusive Design Council. Expect some thoughtful takes on the intersection of accessibility and emerging technologies.

This is Léonie Watson.

A professor of neuroscience who is also a bestselling author. They conduct experiments on people’s brains and then talk about it afterwards. Their talks have been known to be mind-altering.

This is Anil Seth.

That’s quite a line-up, isn’t it?

Deducing the full line-up just from those descriptions wasn’t easy, but Hidde de Vries managed it. So Hidde gets a free ticket to dConstruct 2022 …or, at least, he would if it weren’t for the fact that he already has a ticket (because Hidde is smart; be like Hidde). So a friend of Hidde’s is getting a free ticket instead (because Hidde is generous; be like Hidde).

If you’ve been putting off getting a ticket for dConstruct 2022 until you knew what the line-up would be, well, put off no longer.

You’ll want to be at the Duke of York’s in Brighton on Friday, September 9th. With this line-up of eight supersmart speakers, you know it’s going to be a fantastic day!

The line-up for dConstruct 2022 is complete!

If you haven’t yet got your ticket, it’s not too late.

Now here’s the thing…

When I announced the event back in May, I said:

I’m currently putting the line-up together. I’m not revealing anything just yet, but trust me, you will want to be there.

I still haven’t revealed anything, and I’m kind of tempted to keep it that way. Imagine showing up at an event and not knowing who’s going to be speaking. Is this is the best idea or the worst idea?

I suspect I’m going to have to announce the line-up at some point, but today is not that day. I’m going to string it out a bit longer.

But I am going to describe the line-up. And I’m going to throw in a challenge. The first person to figure out the complete line-up gets a free ticket. Send a tweet to the @dConstruct Twitter account with your deductions.

Ready? Here’s who’s speaking at dConstruct 2022 on Friday, September 9th in The Duke Of Yorks in Brighton…

1. A technologist, product designer, and writer who defies categorisation. They’ve headed up a design studio, co-founded a start-up, and now consult on super-clever machine learning stuff. Their blog is brilliant.
2. An award-winning author from South Africa whose work has recently been adapted for television. Some of their work is kind of sci-fi, some of it is kind of horror, some of it is kind of magical realism, and all of it is great.
3. An artist and designer who has created logos and illustrations for NASA, Apple, and Intel as well as custom typefaces for British Airways and Waitrose. A lover of letterforms, they are now one of the world’s highest-profile calligraphers posting their mesmerising work on Instagram.
4. A Canadian digital designer who has previously worked in the agency world, at Silicon Valley startups, and even venture capital. But now they’re doing truly meaningful work, designing for busy healthcare workers in low-income countries.
5. A multi-instrumentalist musician, producer and robotic artist who composes for film, theatre and the concert stage. They play a mean theremin.
6. An Australian designer and entrepreneur. They work in the cultural heritage sector and they’re an expert on digital archives. Their latest challenge is working out how to make an online photography archive last for 100 years.
7. A tireless defender of web standards and co-author of the Inclusive Design Principles. They’re a member of the W3C Advisory Board and of the BIMA Inclusive Design Council. Expect some thoughtful takes on the intersection of accessibility and emerging technologies.
8. A professor of neuroscience who is also a bestselling author. They conduct experiments on people’s brains and then talk about it afterwards. Their talks have been known to be mind-altering.

Sounds pretty freaking great, right?

Some further clues…

Many of these people have spoken at dConstruct in the past. After all, this year’s one-off event is going to be a kind of “best of.” So you might want to have a nose around the dConstruct archive.

Also, I’ve mentioned some nationalities like Australian, Canadian, and South African, but my self-imposed carbon footprint policy for this event forbids me from flying anyone in. So that’s a clue too.

The game is afoot! Tweet your deductions to the @dConstruct Twitter account or, even better, write a blog post and tweet the link, mentioning @dConstruct. The first correct answer gets a free ticket.

For everyone else, you can still get a ticket.

Brendan Dawes - Now Boarding

I love this project by Brendan—a kind of retroactive design fiction featuring boarding passes from airline travel referenced (but never seen) in films like Die Hard, The French Connection, and Pulp Fiction.

When he was writing up the Clearleft weeknotes for last week, Jon described my activity thusly:

Jeremy—besides working alongside myself and Charlotte this week—has been scheming on Responsive Day Out, and he seems quite pleased with himself. Pretty sure I heard a sinister ‘my plans are coming together almost too well’-type laugh today.

Well, my dastardly schemes are working out perfectly. I’m ridiculously pleased to announce that Rosie Campbell and Aaron Gustafson have been added to the line up for Responsive Day Out 3: The Final Breakpoint.

That means that as well as Rosie and Aaron, you’ll also hear from Zoe, Jake, Alice, Peter, Rachel, Ruth, Heydon, and Alla …and that’s not even the final line-up! There are still more speaker announcements to come, and if my scheming pays off, they’re going to be quite special.

I hope that you’ve already added June 19th (the date of the conference) to your calendar, but I’ve got another date for your diary: March 3rd. That’s when tickets will go on sale.

As with last year’s event—Responsive Day Out 2: The Squishening—tickets will be a measly £80 plus VAT (a total of £96). All those fantastic talks for less than a hundred squid.

So make sure you’re at the ready on 11am on Tuesday, the 3rd of March.

And then I’ll see you for a packed day of knowledge bomb dropping on Friday, the 19th of June.

dConstruct tickets have been on sale for one month now. So far, so good. Three quarters of the tickets are already gone.

Now, every year I keep telling myself I should track how ticket sales went the year before so that I can tell whether this year’s sales are similar. So I had a look back at last year’s ticket sales on Eventbrite and it looks like it was pretty much exactly the same: one month after tickets went on sale, about 75% of them were gone.

There’s always a big, big spike on the day the tickets go on sale (somewhere between half and two thirds of all the tickets go on the first day), then a pretty big churn for the next couple of days after that, and then it settles down into a steady stream of a few tickets a day.

So if this year is following much the same trajectory as last year, how much time have you got left to grab a ticket? Well, last year’s event sold out just under a month before the conference. If the same holds true for this year, then you’ll still be able to get a ticket up until the first week of August—five or six weeks from now.

Of course now that I’ve said that, I’ve effectively changed the parameters of the experiment. If you know that tickets will be sold out in five or six weeks, you’ll be sure to get a ticket before then …and if enough people do that, then it will sell out in less than five or six weeks. BWAMP!

Anyway, my advice is to play it safe and get a ticket while you can. Seriously, don’t come crying to me in August if you still haven’t got your name down for what’s going to be a bloody brilliant day.

One thing though: I want to reiterate what I wrote last year:

But before you slap your virtual money down via the Herculean challenge of Google Checkout, let me reiterate what I wrote on the dConstruct website: dConstruct is not a conference of practical web design and development tutorials.

Obviously I want people to buy tickets for dConstruct, but I want to make sure that those people know what they’re going to get …and crucially, what they’re not going to get. This event isn’t for everybody. Yes, it’s entertaining, but it’s also challenging. And if you need to convince your boss that you’ll learn lots of useful, practical stuff …well, I’m sorry—it’s not that kind of conference. But you will have a great day and you will hear super-smart stuff from super-smart people.

It’s going to be good!

Well, there’s been an overwhelming response to the Responsive Day Out. Tickets sold out in less than 24 hours! I guess that I’m not the only one who wants to spend a day listening to what these great designers and developers have to say about the challenges of responsive web design.

So I got in touch with the Corn Exchange to see if there was any way of fitting in some more seats. It turns out there is. So the capacity for the event has expanded a bit and some more tickets have gone on sale.

But if you want one, you’d better grab it fast.

Oh, and remember, if you work at a cool company that wants to have the undying gratitude of web designers and web developers, get in touch about sponsoring a pre- or post-event party.

Update: And that’s it. The extra tickets are now gone too.