RoR - Episode 540 - Jeremy Smith
[00:00:00] Open: You're listening to the Ruby on Rails podcast 
[00:00:08] David Hill: Joining me today on the Ruby on Rails Podcast is Jeremy Smith. Welcome to the podcast, Jeremy. 
[00:00:13] Jeremy Smith: Hey, thanks, David. It's good to be here. 
[00:00:15] David Hill: Earlier this month, early May, you got to put on Blue Ridge Ruby again for the first time in, uh, several years, right? 
[00:00:24] Jeremy Smith: Yeah. I started the conference in 2023 with my co-organizer, Mark Locklear, and ran it that first time.
It was a brand-new experience to me. I'd never run any kind of event like that before. Had a really great experience. It was a ton of work, but really got a lot out of it personally. And then in 2024, Mark and one of our other team members, Joe Peck, the two of them ran it the second year in 2024. Then we were off in 2025, and back in the fall, I was, like, feeling lucky, feeling up [00:01:00] for it again, and so d- we decided to go for it again here in 2026.
So it was really great. It was a long haul. We started, we were making that decision in, like, November, so a good five-plus months in all the work, but very happy and relieved to be on the other side of it at this point. 
[00:01:20] David Hill: Oh, I imagine. Yeah. The initial idea I had for this conversation was kind of to do a postmortem for the conference and talk about what you think worked, worked well, if there's anything that didn't work that you would do differently going forward.
Yeah. So yeah, just kinda start there. How did Blue Ridge go from your perspective? 
[00:01:40] Jeremy Smith: I keep telling people that this was definitely the best year. Feels like the strongest year. And I think the first time around, you're hitting all the unknowns of something. Like, I was doing everything I could to get out ahead of all of the unknowns by interviewing...
I spoke with, I think, seven different organizers the [00:02:00] first year before starting Blue Ridge to say, like, "What do I need to know about running a conference?" And everybody gave me really valuable stuff. There were still things that Surprise me. My day-to-day is, like, doing software development, so there's so many things about events, about managing people, expectations, and lots of different groups of people.
So the expectations around attendees is different from that of speakers, is different from vendors, from sponsors. There's all these very distinct groups, and what they need, what they expect is somewhat different. So you have to be able to get in their shoes, think about the conference from their perspective, and maybe software has helped me in that, like, 'cause I can kinda step into my, you know, user's shoes or the business owner's shoes when I'm building product.
But these were brand-new user types, I guess, for me to, like, really think through back in 2023. So this time around, like, I'd already done that before, so it felt like I knew the landmines to watch out for, [00:03:00] the things to make sure I was clear on, and also there's always friction points, tension points, things that are difficult, and having navigated that once, I could be aware of and prepared for that happening again.
So that's, for me, like, being prepared and not being surprised is really important to me. I can be pretty anxious person, and so the more I know about what's coming up and not being surprised is really good for me. So this year I felt a lot more calm. I actually worked harder this year than the first year 'cause I time track everything.
It took me 250 hours the first year, and that wasn't all of our time. That was, like, the other organizers and the rest of the team as well. But just in terms of my time, it was 250 hours the first year, and I was just about to 300 this year. That was actually one of the things, like, coming back to the conference this time, I know about myself, like, I'm not the kind of person that just enjoys doing the same thing over and over [00:04:00] again, being on repeat.
For me to really be interested, I need to be exploring something new or answering new questions for myself. I don't like mowing the grass, so you know what I'm saying? Like- Yes ... there's stuff that you do that's mowing the grass. It just grows, and you cut it again, and you cut it again, and you cut it again.
It's just over and over. Some people, I think, really like that. That's the type of person that I'm just not. So I need something new that I'm answering. So part of that for me was could I do this this time around? Could I come in with less stress? Could I do it feeling less anxious as a person? And I think I, like, definitely did.
I had to work harder, so I was more tired, but I was less anxious about it. I think I was able to be present, could deal with the uncertainty and the stresses. Things like the T-shirt order. The vendor we used for that, on their website, it said two weeks turnaround on shirts. So three [00:05:00] weeks out, I put in our order, and they said, "Well, no, we're three weeks out now.
We're gonna try really hard to get it done for you the day before the conference." And so I'm, like, trying not to stress about that. The first year, I would've been extremely stressed. Right. Much more stressed. This time around, I knew this kind of thing happens, and so that was maybe one of the more stressful moments for me.
But the first year is just lots of things like that. You're like, "Holy crap, what am I gonna do if this thing doesn't happen? I just put all this money down on this thing." So I was able to manage that a lot better this year and know some of those things that might come up. So then when they did, it was like, "Okay, no surprise here.
Okay, I expected this could be a challenge." I hate being surprised by stuff. Uh-huh. So yeah, it definitely helps to have that experience, and also to be able to say-- to think to myself, like, "Okay, I did this before. I can get through this. I can figure this out again. It's gonna happen." I also set pretty high expectations for myself.
I hate doing something worse [00:06:00] than what I've done before. I always want things to be better. Right. So there are moments like that where I'm like, "Oh, man, the first time I did a better job on the name badges than I did this time," and, like, frustrated about things like that. But overall, like, when I look at all the high notes of the conference, like, did people have a good time?
Did we pick a good speaker lineup? Did the event flow well? Did it have a sense of space, a sense of place, a continuity to it through the whole conference, a beginning, middle, and end? I kinda feel like it needs to have a story to it. Do people feel comfortable? Did I notice any tension points for attendees or any difficulties there?
Were there things that I, I messed up? Mostly, I'm really happy. There were some things. There's gotta be some issue with sound or display or something like that, of course. We had issues with laptops displaying. But I can nitpick myself on... And I've got notes, you know, of things that I would do differently.
But overall, really happy. I [00:07:00] guess that's just a long way of saying, like, so happy with how it turned out this year. I don't know how it was from your perspective, but it was definitely satisfying. 
[00:07:08] David Hill: For me, it's been a long time since I attended a smaller, kinda regional single-track conference. 
[00:07:13] Jeremy Smith: Yeah. 
[00:07:14] David Hill: All of my conferences in the past few years have been RubyConf, RailsConf, Rails World.
[00:07:18] Jeremy Smith: The big ones. 
[00:07:19] David Hill: The big ones, which are all multi-day, multi-track. So, like, this is my first single-track conference in quite a while, and I always thought I would like the multi-tracks more just because there's the more variety. I pick what I like, and I get to go to that one. But Blue Ridge, it was really nice 'cause, like, you had a really good selection of talks.
The fact that the whole conference, everybody was in the same room- Yeah ... hearing the same topics. I also really, really loved your longer than normal breaks in between each talk I historically have a really hard time just sitting [00:08:00] down and listening to people talk for prolonged periods of time. 
[00:08:02] Jeremy Smith: I think everybody does, pretty much.
[00:08:05] David Hill: But yeah, just having that extra bit of time to stand up to kind of get the blood flowing a little bit, maybe chat with some people before going into the next one, I really appreciated that. 
[00:08:15] Jeremy Smith: I stole that from Jason Swett from Sin City. Well- Not in my idea. Like I saw that and thought, "Oh, that works. I like that."
[00:08:21] David Hill: Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Even though that's not actually the real quote. 
[00:08:26] Jeremy Smith: Okay, interesting. I didn't realize that. That's funny. Yeah. That's actually one of the funnest parts to me is being able to take all my favorite parts of a bunch of other conferences and put it together and see, like, will this work together?
And I think that was the thing the first year that was so exciting to me was like, do I have a sense about what would make a good conference? And if I pulled it off, would people like it? Would it work for people? And that's like, to me, the interesting part, and also, like, what I was looking for to keep me engaged this time around.
It [00:09:00] can't be mowing the grass. It's gotta be like, "Okay, what could I do differently? What knobs can I turn to dial in the experience in a different way?" You can't manufacture feelings for people, or you can't ensure that everyone has a certain kind of experience, but you can do what you can to, like, set up the environment so that it could happen.
Right. So that good things can happen. So that was a lot of what I spent time thinking about with this. On top of all the logistics is, like, trying to think, like, how do I set up the environment so that the magic that can happen at a small conference will happen if at all possible. And you really are playing to, like, the advantages of small.
Knowing the size of the conference that you're doing, like, I think really matters because you need to maximize the strengths that you get. The fact that everyone is in the same room and is having the same experience means it matters even more that you're creating [00:10:00] narrative arc for your talks, I think, because everyone is having the same experience, and they're all going through that arc together.
And so it's not like everyone's just doing a choose-your-own-adventure in that sense. So you really can play to the advantage of creating a narrative arc to the conference, giving it a theme. And I wasn't trying to be overt with the theme, but Christine, one of our speakers, she wrote a blog post afterward, and she explicitly wrote out what she thought the theme was, and I was like, "Ah, that's it."
That was it. Like, I wasn't ever, like, saying that in my head, but that's what I wanted it to feel like. And that- Nice ... felt really nice. Yeah. 
[00:10:39] Open: Somebody picked up on it at least then. 
[00:10:41] Jeremy Smith: Yeah. Yeah, it felt good 
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[00:11:20] David Hill: So what friction or tension points were there at, in the conference that if someone else was planning an event that you would warn them about based on your experience of things that they should look out for?
[00:11:33] Jeremy Smith: One part is just the scale of a conference, both in terms of the time commitment and budget. So one tension is just, like, making sure that you're getting enough done along the months leading up to a conference. And I would tell people, like, if you wanna put on a small regional, you need at least five months, maybe six, and you should probably be dedicating, like, 10 hours a week to it if you're kind of in charge and doing most of or a lot of the [00:12:00] work.
For it, I do think it takes probably one person at that size, probably one person kind of coordinating all the efforts. It's really hard. I think Adrian Marin from Friendly, I think he's got a team that they kinda split up and can handle lots of different things together. I haven't learned how to do that really well, where I've got, like, "Okay, you've got this area, and I just know you're gonna, like, bring it in at the end or whatever."
For me, I need to, like, have it all in my head 'cause there's so many pieces that you wouldn't think would be connected, but it's like, okay, any time a sponsor comes in, you could hand sponsors off to a person to kind of, like, manage. Like, "Okay, y- volunteer, you're gonna manage the sponsor relationships." Well, then the sponsor builds a relationship and builds commitments to that person, but that information about what the sponsor may want at the conference may not come back to the person that's planning out the schedule.
Or [00:13:00] we committed to this thing for the sponsor that wasn't in our normal sponsor packages. Who's keeping track of the promises you make to a sponsor? Things like that. Or if you have one person doing registration, do the dietary restrictions that come in over there make it to the person that's organizing and buying all the food?
Things like that. There's so many things like that, especially at the small scale, all the coordination of those things can be difficult. So to me, it's been a ton of work, but maybe easier to just have one person that's like, "Okay, you just need to own all of it and think through, like, 'Okay, I know we've got these dietary restrictions.'"
Otherwise, you need to, like, write SOPs or something for all these things, and I haven't taken another 300 hours to write that out yet. Uh- Oh, 
[00:13:50] David Hill: geez, yeah. 
[00:13:52] Jeremy Smith: Not that it would actually take you that long, but there are so many details. 
[00:13:55] David Hill: Mm-hmm. 
[00:13:56] Jeremy Smith: That's part of it is it's endless waves of details, [00:14:00] and I think building software has helped me get good at details, but it's a deluge.
It just feels like so many, even compared to building product But when you pull it off, it feels really good. There's definitely a satisfaction to that. So I think the tensions are really around, like there's a, a huge scope of work to be done, making sure that you've like got enough time ahead of time and that you're apportioning out that time all along the path so you're not like coming up and you've got a bubble of work right at, you know, that last 20% is actually 80%.
And I had a better sense of pacing this time around because of that- Mm-hmm ... knowing that I had to really hit the ground running with a lot of those things. But also another big tension can be things like, okay, you need money to get started. You need money to put down on a venue. That's the beginning thing.
You need 50% down on a venue, and then you're rolling Because then you can make announcements like, "We're doing it. [00:15:00] Here's the dates, here's where it's gonna be." And then you're building from there. But there are so many other things that you need money for that you're waiting, and we didn't have an operating budget to begin with.
I had to come out of pocket, you know, initially to get down payment on the venue, and so I'm waiting for ticket sales and sponsors. So you're waiting for this to come in, like hope, like, please, please, 'cause I can't pay for vendors. I can't, like, plan on certain expenses until I know what our budget's gonna look like.
And so along the way, there's a bunch of tension around that. Okay, gotta wait for people to buy when they wanna buy tickets and that sort of thing, and I'm, like, so grateful to people that buy tickets early. It really, really helps. Right. And sponsors that are like, they're ready to go right at the beginning.
That really, really helps. Of course, I'm happy for, like, whenever someone is ready to come in, but the earlier it happens for us, the easier it is to be like, "Okay, I've got this much working capital. I can do video. Yes, I can have this much food. I can make these orders for [00:16:00] T-shirts." There are so many things like that, that you're having to wait to see where the revenue is to know, okay, can we do this?
Can we afford this next thing? Do I need to pull back on this? Speaker dinner, for example, can be a big expense. What restaurant can we take 20 people, 25 people to? And that's, like, one of the ways that you can sort of... A lot of times speakers are getting a modest stipend, and it doesn't even cover all of their travel, all their accommodations, or nearly, you know, all the work that they put on, on writing talks and stuff.
So doing a speaker dinner I think is a really nice thing, but that's can be an expensive part. So knowing what restaurant you can book for 20 to 30 people, you have to maybe wait until you see how much money you have. You know, you have to have coffee too at the event and stuff like that. So there's just all that stuff, [00:17:00] and having done this before, like, I know what those numbers look like and could keep watching it, but it's like an endless thing, just, like, always watching the numbers.
"All right, can I do this? Okay. Now, now we can say yes to this thing. Okay, now we can say yes to this. All right, I'm pretty sure." But you're just, like, guessing a lot too. There's that, and then there's just lots of communications too. I've said this before, but one of the things that being a developer has taught me is, like, don't repeat yourself.
It's kinda beat into us, especially early career. And when I realized, like, with conferences and anything like that, organizing people is, that's the absolute wrong thing to do. You have to repeat yourself over and over and over again. I used to think that that was highly inefficient, that it was actually a sign that you hadn't, like, succeeded in doing the right thing.
Tell people something once very clearly, one canonical statement from you, and that's it And the reality is it's, like, totally wrong. You need to tell people interested in your conference over and over and over again. [00:18:00] You need to tell your team things over and over, the details, like what's in your head.
You need to thank people over and over again. You need to tell them how much you appreciate them, keep selling the vision of what we're trying to accomplish. Like, this is what it should look like. This is what it should be like. There's so many things like that that I've realized you need to be repeating yourself a lot.
That has not come naturally to me just from my day-to-day work. But now I know that, and that can also just be a big, maybe not tension, but just a big challenge to continue to, like, what do I need to be saying now? 'Cause people won't always just ask you outright, or they might ask and you say, "Well, I already put that in the FAQ."
Yeah, but you still need it. Just 'cause, you know, you said it once doesn't mean, like, people don't need to hear it again, so. 
[00:18:48] David Hill: Right. 
[00:18:48] Jeremy Smith: I think just always staying on top of, like, what do people need to hear now can be a really big challenge. And then figuring out what things meet your quality bar and what things need to [00:19:00] improve, and then what things can you delegate and give off to other people, and what things do you need to keep for yourself to do?
And when you do delegate, how do you communicate what success looks like? That was another big thing for this year. I had several goals for myself that were different. Coming to this one was like, "Okay, what am I doing new this time?" One was the thing I said about the stress level and, and anxiety, and that was a good experience this year.
Another was, "Can I delegate more this year? Can I give more to people, and how do I do that in a way that's successful, where they understand what I'm trying to accomplish or what I care about, but give them, like, creative freedom to work within that?" And so part of that was making Loom videos and saying, "Hey, this is why what you're about to do is really important to me, why it really matters for the conference.
Here are the goals that I have. Here's what it should be, kinda big picture. When people have this experience, they should feel like this. But within that, I have a few specific [00:20:00] details that I need you to meet, like a budget maybe or things like that. But within that, that's the bounds. Be creative, like go crazy, like that's the vision."
And being able to kinda set that for people, I feel like I did a better job of in the areas that I was able to sort of apportion and give to people as special projects. I think I did a better job this time at that. And then another thing was for me, one of the things I wanted to see this year... The first year, we had about 110 people, and this year I thought, "Okay, if I worked really hard at marketing, just like pushed myself super, super hard, could I move the needle on that?
Could I, like, double it? Could I get us to 200?" That's what I was originally thinking back in November. 
[00:20:42] David Hill: Oh, wow. 
[00:20:43] Jeremy Smith: So I put tons of time into marketing. I don't know what it looks like on the outside, but on the inside, I was putting a ton of time on marketing, social media stuff, making all the videos that I did with the speakers.
Which I loved, by the way. [00:21:00] Thanks. I did too. That was really rewarding and had extra benefits that I did not expect. One was it gave me FaceTime with each of the speakers before they came to the conference, and I think helped me build rapport with each of them. Like, I knew a lot of them already, but like reconnecting, spending time with them, talking about their topic, talking about them, and getting to highlight them in sort of a pre-game format prior to the conference I think was really special.
And my feeling was that It brought even more energy to the table and actually helped the speakers connect to each other prior, 'cause every time I would release it, I'd be like, "Hey, here's a video out." And the speakers would be like, "Oh, that was great," you know, to the other speakers. So I think it helped them connect to each other, and there's a way that, like, they're the stars of the show in a way.
And when the stars are all friends or, like, have some, like, cohesiveness because of the, you know, rapport they've built [00:22:00] together or the time they've already shared. I don't know. You've probably been to events where none of the speakers seem to know anything about any of the other ones, and there's no connection at all.
I feel like I've noticed that. Mm-hmm. Or where the MC doesn't have any connection to those people. Right. And it just feels kinda off, like the MC doesn't know how to say their name or has to read off a note card to say, you know, who this person was or, like, they mess up some of the details or something.
And it's fine maybe, but it doesn't feel very connected, very, like, they're all presenting together this thing. And so that was actually one of the really nice, I guess, secondary benefits that I didn't anticipate from doing those videos was I just spent so much more time thinking about who each speaker was, what their talk was about, talking to them about it, getting to know them a little bit more.
And honestly, during a s- conference, I don't have much time to sit down with speakers and, like, thank them for who they are, you know, what they're bringing, or to engage with them about their [00:23:00] topic. But getting to do that ahead of time was great. 
[00:23:02] David Hill: I was watching you pretty closely, I thought, at the conference.
Yeah, you had no spare time to breathe. 
[00:23:08] Jeremy Smith: Yeah. I think I was actually a little less frantic than the first year, thankfully. That was actually better for me. But yes, almost no time, unfortunately. It kinda sucks. A couple people have commented it's like being at, at your own wedding, you never get to sit down to eat.
It's kinda like that. You're just running around trying to take care of lots of details, but make sure everyone's having a good time and also say hello. These are all people you care about, are glad that are there. So So I was really happy about that, but it did take a bunch of time. Making all those videos, editing each one of those, like it took quite a bit of time.
So that was one of those goals, like could I get to two hundred? And the short answer is no, like I couldn't. We had probably around a hundred attendees. I think we had a hundred and seven registered, maybe right around a hundred in attendance, and a [00:24:00] hundred feels good. I felt very happy with a hundred. I'm satisfied at a hundred.
My question to myself was like, if I could push it, like what could I... The answer's no, like not this year at least. And seems like maybe people are distracted by something. I don't even know what could be happening. 
[00:24:16] David Hill: And 
[00:24:16] Jeremy Smith: it's 
[00:24:16] David Hill: not like the world is on fire or anything. 
[00:24:18] Jeremy Smith: No, no, I can't imagine. So I think there might be reasons for that, but also like maybe getting to Asheville is just harder than other places.
Or maybe, you know, I've also thought like, okay, you know, we took twenty twenty-five off. We haven't committed to a yearly cadence, and so people don't always know to plan for that. I don't know. I think there's a number of reasons it could be. I think there's probably capacity in the Eastern US for more people at a regional.
People have asked like, "Does it have to be any bigger? Like, isn't a hundred fine?" Like, yeah, it's totally fine. It's more like my curiosity about that was driving me, like could I make this bigger? 
[00:24:55] David Hill: Right. Like you kinda you said, once you've done something once, [00:25:00] you kinda wanna do it different or better the next time.
You wanna see it grow. More attendees is a very obvious signal of growth, even though that's not the only thing. 
[00:25:11] Jeremy Smith: Yeah, it's not the only thing. And it's not about satisfaction like that I need to have a thing, but it's more like I need something that feels like a challenge that's a new thing. And so that was part of the challenge for me this year.
And I got an answer to that. Maybe not the answer I was looking for, but I'm still very happy with the outcome of the conference, so that's okay. But I think it is helpful for other people to know that that's what this year looks like, that maybe that's a this year thing. Maybe that's a... A couple years ago, everyone was like, "Oh, I'm so glad regional Ruby conferences are back.
There's so much demand for them." And this year I'm thinking like, "Is there? Is there so much demand for them?" Like honestly, I don't know. And that's okay. I just need to know what reality is for myself. This was my reality this year, and it's totally [00:26:00] fine, but it kinda gives me an answer for what to think about next time, so.
And then I also this year wanted to think through like what were things that we could do at the conference that would be unexpected, that would be new, and the kinds of things you could only do at a small regional conference together So one thing was the Ruby Passport experience, which was really great.
So happy to be able to do that. 
[00:26:29] David Hill: I got my second stamp, which made me really excited and happy. 
[00:26:32] Jeremy Smith: Yeah. Yeah, right. Katya did a fantastic job. Katya- She did ... Sarmin. Sorry. 
[00:26:37] David Hill: She did a really good job with the embassy. 
[00:26:40] Jeremy Smith: That was an example of me completely delegating something. She hadn't even gotten her own passport yet, so she hadn't seen the embassy process, so I had to explain it to her.
Like, "Okay, this is kinda what it looked like at Rails World, and here's how I think we could do something on our scale. And so here's the picture of what I want it to look like. It should feel like another [00:27:00] connection point, like a unique connection point where the embassy workers are connecting to the attendees.
I want it to feel like one other way that you get to connect with other Rubius at the event. You can do talking in between the sessions. You can go out to lunch with people. This is like another way you can connect to other Rubius that you wouldn't do any other way. Like, you wouldn't do that at home.
You're not gonna do that on social media or whatever." And she took that and ran with it. The other part was like, I want this to be like, it needs to feel slightly bureaucratic in a kind of annoying way. And she nailed it. She got it. It was just perfect. So that was awesome. And then the game show, you know, apologies to Drew for his game show.
I've seen so many people have such a good time with his game show. I was thinking, like, "Is there another kind of game show that we could do?" And then it just happened that Sarah from Scout, this great connection to a sponsor, her husband's a comedian who invented his own [00:28:00] game show for their comedy club, and he brought it, and it was hilarious.
It was so good. And that was one of those, is this gonna work? I hope so. I don't think it worked. I was robbed of victory 
[00:28:10] David Hill: in 
[00:28:11] Jeremy Smith: that game show. Yeah, that's true, David. Man, the debate section, I was feeling tense. I don't know about you, I was feeling tense in that debate section especially, but it was so funny.
Oh, man. The crowd was definitely going wild and That's another kind of thing that you can only do at a small conference. Yeah. You're probably not gonna do that at a huge one, and you're not gonna do that when you're home on your computer and everybody's like... There are things you can do in person in a smaller setting like that, it's not gonna translate anywhere else.
[00:28:48] David Hill: Right. Yeah. 
[00:28:49] Jeremy Smith: That's the kind of stuff I was looking for to do to make good memories. What can I do to make good memories for people? You can't manufacture it. You can't ensure absolutely 100% it's gonna happen, [00:29:00] but can we try some stuff that people will remember for several ye- years? There'll be takeaways.
And I have so many of those from other conferences I've been to that that's part of what is exciting to me, is what could I do the next time that's like people didn't expect it, but that was like an extra thing they got. Right. They got another special memory to take away that they can kind of look back on and have some fondness around, and that, that to me is really gratifying.
[00:29:26] David Hill: One of the things I wanted to ask you about, 'cause it was one of the things that kind of differentiated Blue Ridge from a lot of the other conferences I've been to, was that you did not provide lunch. You just had a bigger gap and basically unleashed 100 developers on downtown Asheville What went into that decision to not cater the conference?
Was it purely financial, or was there something else that drove that decision? 
[00:29:51] Jeremy Smith: That 
[00:29:51] David Hill: was 
[00:29:51] Jeremy Smith: one thing I heard when I said I interviewed seven conference organizers before the first time around. That's one thing I think I kept hearing. [00:30:00] I, I wanna say Jason Terrence was one of the people. Actually, he was the person that told me, "Don't do a hotel block because it puts you on the hook for hotels."
[00:30:09] David Hill: Mm-hmm. 
[00:30:09] Jeremy Smith: That's another thing people always expect you to do, but you don't have to. Right. You don't actually have to do that 'cause then you're on the hook if they don't... So often, like, you have to cover 80% of the hotel block if people don't meet it or something. Anyway, so another thing people would have noticed and what I heard from other conference organizers was food is super expensive, catering is expensive for lunch, and it's also almost never gonna be the thing that people are like, "Wow, the food was so good."
It's like there's always gonna be complaints about the food. Most of the conferences I've been to, I heard people complaining about the food, even when it was fine. Right. Even if it was, like, mostly fine for most people, almost always it's like, "Well, they ran out of this thing," or, "The lines are super long."
So many different things. So it's one of those things that it's gonna be [00:31:00] super expensive. It can go sideways so easy. And another thing that's matters to me is, like, when you come in from out of town, part of what's special, unique about a regional conference is you can give people a sense of the place, and I think that actually matters.
Like, when I go to a place, I wanna experience what that place is like and what people experience there. And if you can do it, build it into your schedule and give people the ability to just go out for an hour and a half to two hours. And Asheville's perfect for that. They have a great food scene, and we're right in the downtown, so you can get to a bunch of places real easily.
That's just, to me, is way better and takes this huge burden off, and people can pick what they want. And if they didn't like their meal, it's not my fault. I'm happy to have something that's not my fault- Right ... 
[00:31:45] David Hill: like, during the conference. I actually had a funny story related to the food scene in downtown Asheville.
[00:31:52] Jeremy Smith: Yeah. Okay. 
[00:31:53] David Hill: The Uber driver that I got picked up from the airport to take me to the hotel, [00:32:00] I got a chatty Uber driver, and she's talking about how the beer scene in downtown Asheville is apparently just beer central. Very politely, I'm just like, "Well, that's, I'm glad that's there for people who like it. I don't drink, so that's not really gonna help me."
But then she's like, "Oh, but after all of the beer came to town, then all the foodies came to town, too." And so Asheville has like, I'm pretty sure this is a direct quote from what she said, "Any cuisine you could imagine wanting, minus Russian, you can probably find in downtown Asheville." That's funny. And so, like, I immediately was like, "I'm gonna keep eyes open for interesting food places because this sounds like a place where I can just try some new things."
And yeah, I was very, very happy with my meal choices while I was there. 
[00:32:52] Jeremy Smith: I lived in Asheville for a year and a half, and it's definitely one of the best food, music, and beer, if you like that. [00:33:00] All great in Asheville, in my opinion And I moved to Greenville after that. Now South Carolina is an hour south of Asheville, and it really like-- Greenville actually has a decent food scene, but it was still like the step down from Asheville, and this was ten years ago.
Greenville's gotten better, but back then it was just like, "Oh my gosh." I got really spoiled. 
[00:33:21] David Hill: Right. 
[00:33:22] Jeremy Smith: So it is nice to go to a place that has so many nice options and ends up being like a place that people do destination weddings and getaways, weekend getaways. And for such a small, relatively small town, like it's packed a lot.
It's highly dense with all of those kinda options, which is really nice. That's part of why I picked Asheville for doing that conference in the first place rather than Greenville where I live, 'cause logistically that would make more sense. Everyone now thinks I live in Asheville even though I don't. But in terms of location and sense of place and ease of getting to a [00:34:00] lot of those really nice things, I think it's kinda perfect.
Other than the airport. The airport, some people are like, "Is there a major hub?" And it's like, "No, sorry. You're gonna have to go to this rinky-dink little regional..." And some people like flew into Charlotte and drove, and I totally understand that and like respect that. That's the one thing I can't quite accommodate well with a place like Asheville.
But I do think like picking a place that people want to go, if you can do that, it's a big win. 
[00:34:27] David Hill: Yeah. If 
[00:34:27] Jeremy Smith: you can pick a place people already had on their bucket list to go to, they're going largely for the conference, but use the benefit of the location to sway them, to push them over the edge of like, "Okay, I'm gonna go there."
I always hear that. "I've always wanted to go there. I always wanted to see that town, and maybe I'll spend another day." And that's what I always hope too, is that people would spend the weekend, you know, hang out and that kinda stuff. 
[00:34:49] David Hill: Yeah. Asheville was never a place that I don't think I had even heard of it before.
[00:34:53] Jeremy Smith: Okay. 
[00:34:53] David Hill: It wasn't even on my radar. And now it's like, well, if he does Blue Ridge again next year... By the way, that's the next question. Is [00:35:00] it coming back? But like if you do Blue Ridge again, I'm probably gonna go back. I really liked Asheville. It was a really fun place to visit. Good. That's another thing is like if you love the place that you're 
[00:35:11] Jeremy Smith: hosting, that really help.
I think that comes through. Both the venue, if you enjoy the venue that you're in. I really loved our venue this year. And the town that you're in, being able to show that town off is really a nice thing and a special thing. Not every conference has to do that. I'm not giving a formula that works for everybody.
But if you've got those advantages, I think it really helps. And it's my favorite mountain town, and I want more people to go there and more people to like it, and it's important to me, so it's fun to share something that's important that way that's outside of just tech stuff, I think. 
[00:35:44] David Hill: Cool. So have you guys decided on if there will be a 2027 or 2028 edition of the conference yet?
Short answer, no. We have not decided We 
[00:35:58] Jeremy Smith: had our team retro [00:36:00] and everyone's thrilled with how the conference went this year, and everybody wants to bring it back again. I'm pretty sure I can't do close to 300 hours next year beyond what I could probably do next year. 
[00:36:14] Open: Right. 
[00:36:14] Jeremy Smith: What I keep telling people is, like, I need to be able to-- every single time for me is a one-off.
It can't be like mowing the grass. It just can't. The lift on that is too much. There are things that I can do, like, on repeat that are not as time-consuming, like podcasting or things like that. They're still an investment, and people don't understand, like, what that looks like long term. 
[00:36:36] David Hill: Mm-hmm. 
[00:36:37] Jeremy Smith: But for me personally, like something this big, I have to have a new thing that it drives me, like either curiosity, could I do this different?
Could I make this happen different to like be ready for the cha... I have to have like that energy to be ready to ride the wave and go all the way through. [00:37:00] Even this year, I was getting pretty close to burnout by the end. Like it was just so tiring, and I've had to like work more, you know, just do more like build hours with client work this year.
And so the combination of those two was just-- I was feeling pretty drowned by the end. So short answer, I loved how this year went. I'm so satisfied If there was no cost to me, I would keep doing it. If it wasn't such a big lift to make it happen. And so I've opened up to the team like, "Hey, if there's somebody else that wants to run it to sort of be the point person on it."
And if you've never done it, out of our team, I've told our team like, "Hey, if you wants to do it and you haven't done this before, I'll move into the position of like you tell me what you need and how did you do CFP? How did you do venue selection?" All this kind of stuff. I can just tell you what I did.
But the only ways I know to do it are either to move in a position like that and just advise or kind of do it [00:38:00] myself, and I don't know another way to do it. And so, so far no one has said that, but we're gonna meet again in a few months and talk about it, see where people are at. Honestly, it would be most helpful to us as a conference if we announced, like if we had announced the end of day two, "Hey, we're gonna be back next year.
Here's our dates." Right. That would be the best thing for ticket sales, for expectations, for budget planning, all that stuff. For sponsors. We're kind of doing a disservice like not doing that. 
[00:38:32] David Hill: But if, yeah, if you're not in a position where you can commit to that yet, then- Yeah ... you can't do that. Yeah. 
[00:38:37] Jeremy Smith: That's kind of what it is.
It takes five to six months, so usually by October we need to be thinking about it, talking about it, and then November making a decision and putting money down on a venue. So I guess we'll see. I want Bluish to keep going. It doesn't have to be me. I'm very happy for others on our team to do it and [00:39:00] really hope it will.
So I think it will continue. I just don't know when or how. So For me, every single event, I now look at conferences as an insider. Each one is its own unique thing that took a lot of effort, and people have a sense of, like, there being a continuity from year to year as if this thing just keeps re-emerging like a flower in spring or something.
If it's a perennial plant or something, and it's really not. Every time it's a brand-new thing. Every single time it's a brand-new thing, and every time it happens, it's special. I think it's special. As a conference attender and sort of a-- on that side, I now see the level of work that goes into it, and I'm sort of like, it gives me even more gratitude for the thing that happens right now, like this one.
This might be the last one. You just never know. Sometimes you know when the last one is. [00:40:00] Sometimes it's announced that way. Many times it could be the last one, you just don't know. It's helped me to come into other conferences, like, with that appreciation of knowing that, like, there may never be another one like this.
This is the one, and this is the one I'm at right now. Not necessarily a satisfying answer for people, like, who would like to have something keep coming back. 
[00:40:21] David Hill: Sometimes that's the answer you get, though. The facts of reality and other people having, you know, lives and schedules and other demands on their time that need to be addressed, so the thing you're looking at can't always happen the way you imagine it.
[00:40:34] Jeremy Smith: It's life. However, there is also almost always another place, almost always another party to get to I feel like I have continuity, not necessarily from specific events continuing, but always knowing that there's gonna be some place I can meet up with my Ruby friends. Someone's gonna do it, and it doesn't have to be always the same [00:41:00] people, always the same place.
You can't always recreate the same experience you had somewhere either, and that can be really nice for nostalgia, but also, like, it's okay for the thing that was great to only happen once or to have happened a couple times and then go away. I'm still sad about the last Friendly RB, and Adrian saying, like, he's not gonna do it again or may not do it again, and I really wanted to do the fall Europe triathlon.
Like, it was, like, really something I wanted to do. But maybe next year I do the spring triathlon or something 'cause now it's... There's a new possible triathlon. I don't know if people know about that, but there's a crop of Ruby conferences in the spring now that you could do that with. So things change, but I don't know.
It feels like you can always find a new place where people are getting together. 
[00:41:47] David Hill: Yeah, I didn't learn about the Ruby triathlon until it was the last year it was happening. I can't just stay in Europe for a month, unfortunately. Sa- same. 
[00:41:57] Jeremy Smith: It's a life goal. Hoping I can do it at [00:42:00] some point. At some point, there might be something else.
[00:42:02] David Hill: That would be really cool to do at some point, but- Yeah ... probably not in the near future. 
[00:42:08] Jeremy Smith: Yeah. 
[00:42:08] David Hill: Well, thank you for chatting with me today, Jeremy, about Blue Ridge Ruby and how it all went, and I had a really great time at the conference, and I'm glad that I went, and I'm glad you put it on. 
[00:42:18] Jeremy Smith: Thanks. I'm so glad you came.
Yeah, really appreciate it. 
[00:42:22] Open: This has been the Ruby on Rails podcast. 
[00:42:24] David Hill: Special thanks to Mike, our wonderful editor at Redrum Creative, for making us sound like professionals. Thanks for listening.