"Will the material be available on DVD after the event?"

Unfortunately the answer to this is "Almost certainly not". There are a few reasons for this.
a) Production costs would be quite high. We'd need at least 3 camera's, and 3 cameramen.

b) By my current calculation there will be 91 hours of formal sessions. Plus 16 hours of informal Q&A sessions. That's a LOT of material for a DVD. Actually that'd translate into more than 20 DVD's. Which means post-production, and manufacturing, costs will also be high.

c) The format of the event does not translated well to video. The emphasis this year is you working on your code. Much of the time will be taken up in the doing, not just the presenting. If you hit an error, or make a mistake, we'll be there to help you out. And not just with CapeSoft stuff, but with general Clarion stuff as well.

"What is a Q&A session?"

Q&A sessions at the beginning and end of most of the days are times where you can ask questions, we can help you, and you can help each other. Think of it as a giant "real" newsgroup. This is a time for showing others what you're working on, soliciting suggestions and seeing what others have done. This is a time for getting one-on-one help with a CapeSoft programmer, or with another attendee.

"How do I know this World Tour isn't just a big fancy Sales Event?"

This question has a long answer, so please bear with me.

The short answer goes something like this;
Because we say so. Last year we tried hard not to make it a sales exercise, and the number of those attendees who have already registered for this years event encourages us that we are on the right track.

Now for the in-depth answer

If we wanted to do a straight sales pitch then we could do it best by getting folk together into 1 room, send our best salesman, take as little of your time as possible, and generally keep the cost as low as possible.

Last year, based on requests from a number of users, we wanted to move away from straight "sales" and make the events more "training" related. We extended the length of time to 2 days, and had 2 trainers (Jono and Bruce). We attempted to divide up the time so that we covered as much useful info as possible.

As successful as that event was, what it really showed us, was how hard it is to cover so much ground in so little time. Because of the number of things we tried to cover, and because of the time constraints, we found we weren't able to help people individually, with their own applications as much as we would have liked to.

That lead to the format for this year. We've lengthened it from 2 days  to 5 days. This means more time is available.

We've also "threaded" the training into 3 rooms. This means more time is available. And less time needs to be spent watching a product you may not be interested in.

We've increased the number of presenters from 2 to 3 (in Pretoria & Australia) and from 2 to 5 (in USA and Cambridge).

We've extended the day. By setting aside early-morning, and late-afternoon slots for general Q&A we've specifically set aside time for helping individuals with their problems.

We've even shuffled the schedule slightly (in USA and Cambridge) to allow for people to do both SQL and the Web Server sessions.

All in all it means we're doing 68 days of CapeSoftie time at the training events. Plus 33 days travelling time.  Spending a fairly impressive wad of cash.

In summary - If we were doing this simply as a sales exercise then we're going about it all wrong.

"So why are you doing it?"

We're doing it primarily so that those people who have spent money on our products leverage that investment as much as possible. This is good for us. If our customers are doing well, then they're more inclined to purchase more tools, tools we may yet create in the future. If our customers are getting value from the products, then they're more likely to tell others. Perhaps
they're stuck on a problem that's not even of our making? No matter, we'll do our best to help there as well.

We're not miracle workers, but we've committed everything we can to making this week of training as productive as it can possibly be.

"Will you have products available with special pricing?"

Of course we will. Will people see things that they've not seen before, and want to add them to
their app there-and-then? I hope so. But is this primarily a sales exercise? Nope.

"What about people wanting to see if a product is suitable before they purchase?"

Clearly if you are attending the event to get the training on tools you already own, then you can easily sit in on classes for tools you don't have. If they get boring just carry on with your own work. If you see something you like then yes, you can buy it, and implement it straight away. Remember this is a primarily Work Week, not a holiday. So even if you are just coming to see what's available, make sure you also bring along enough work to keep yourself busy.

"Some of the sessions I want to see clash with each other"

There are 2 ways to approach any kind of event. You either have one single room (so everyone sees everything) or you have multiple rooms (which offer choice, but run the risk of a clash.)

Last year we did the single room thing, and it was great. But inevitably some folk ended up sitting through sessions that didn't interest them. Others would have liked to spend all the time on just one of the topics. Yes, clashing is unfortunate. But having a choice is still better than having no choice.

In addition, we've managed to duplicate some of the shorter sessions, so hopefully with a bit of planning you can squeeze in most of what you want to see. We have tweaked the schedule since it was originally published, to cater for the most common clashing issues.

If there are topics you're not able to get to, then make sure you grab one of us during the Q&A sessions and we'll do out best to help you out there as well.

"I'm coming to the SQL sessions, What SQL Backend can I use?"

Geoff will have PostgreSQL and MsSQL installed on his laptop. When dealing with the backend he'll be doing examples using these two. In general he'll be able to answer questions on these two, and he may be able to answer questions on others as well. If you do not have a backend preference then we recommend installing PostgreSQL for this event.

That said, you are free to use whichever backend you prefer. Most of the training will be either on client-side issues, or "generic SQL" issues.

For the SQL sessions it is important to come prepared. Please read the preparation notes for this session carefully. We don't want to waste time unnecessarily.

"In your earlier emails you mentioned Clarion 7..."

At this stage we are using Clarion 7 as members of the Alpha program. The Alpha progress is clearly laid out on the SoftVelocity blog. As of writing this, C7 is not released yet, and may not be ready in time for the event. This is a pity, but nevertheless we are hopeful that we will be able to show C7 at the events, even if we don't do all the work in them.