Today is the last of 2015 and Reject.JS happened roughly 3 months ago and yet, we're still blown away by all the feedback and hugs we got. We'll always have that certain September day in our minds with good memories and we hope you do as well.
The talks
There was a total of 11 talks with a wide variety of topics, and we loved every single of them as they showed how diverse this community can and should be. There is of course more work to do in that area, but it's also great to see the gains of the efforts. JavaScript is everywhere and it was amazing to see that reflected in the talks as well. We've published all the talks to a handy playlist so you can watch them for free:
Many of the speakers came from far away, having long travel times and everyone spend countless hours preparing their talks and demos. We're grateful to the max for their effort to provide us with insights, learnings and fun.
The attendees
Reject.JS main goal was always to get people into the community who couldn't be part of it otherwise, either by not being able to afford the ticket prices, not getting accepted with their talks or simply not being able to spend a weekend day at a conference. In all the years we had over 900 attendees and most of them bought a ticket before we even announced the speakers.
This year, we not only had low ticket prices for a full day conference, but also had diversity supporter tickets that costed more, but enabled us to have a budget to get people in from groups that are underrepresented in tech. We sold a total of 54 diversity supporter tickets which helped tremendously in our efforts. Just think about this: People are willing to spend more than double the price, even though there have been cheaper tickets available, just to give other people the chance to attend as well. Heartwarming!
The constant support of JSConf.eu & CSSConf EU. and their respective diversity campaigns had a big impact on us as well.
We made an effort in making everyone feel welcome and put people first. We did Reject.JS for you, the humans of this community. Thank you for joining us!
The end
The last video we published is a video that gives you some impressions of Reject.JS 2015 and tells you a little about our motivation:
We still have tears our eyes every time we watch this video and at the same time we're more than happy that we've touched and inspired so many of you. While it was the last Reject.JS, we hope to see you at one of the many great community events all around the world.
Special thanks
Family Williams (Chris, Laura, Virginia & Cameron) for starting this whole JSConf thing that inspired us and many others to do the same. We wouldn't be here without you.
The whole JSConf.eu (Jan, Tiffany, Holger, Malte, Karolina) and CSSConf EU team (Kristina, Michael, Kevin ) and all their amazing helpers behind the scenes. We had so many chats with you and you always kept pushing us to be even better and supported us wherever we can. We couldn't have wished for a better team, thank you!
The best band of the world: The Semicolons (Jan, Jan, Jed, Paul). We're proud to have our own theme song! Also check our sister band: Nested Loops.
Team members of the past who helped shaping Reject.JS: Lena Reinhard, Felix Geisendörfer, Tim Koschützki & Thorsten Ball.
And other events and people for providing inspiration:
- Paul Campbell
- Jed Schmidt
- Jan Krutisch
- Remy Sharp
- Pete Aitken
- Mikeal Rogers
- BrooklynJS
- FunConf
- conc.at
- Eurucamp
- SoCoded
- OTSConf
- JSUnconf
- NodeConf
Goodbye
... and thank you for everything. If you want to run your own event, feel free to take our ideas and improve upon them. Write us if you have any questions, check out Jed's fantastic talk on building BrooklynJS and good luck!
― The Reject.JS team (Katharina, Jan, Ola, Stephan, Matti, Robin)
