We've had a fairly large number of enquires about the status of Scotch on the Rocks 2012.

The quick answer is ... we don't know.

The longer answer is as follows....

At the end of a hugely successful 2011 conference we had around £8,000 worth of equipment stolen from the conference hotel, which ultimately put a huge downer on things. It's technically still an ongoing case, so I can't comment too much more but it ultimately made us evaluate whether we want to keep running the conference.

Scotch on the Rocks is a massive expensive to Fuzzy Orange. We effectively use it as our sole marketing event for the year and plough our entire marketing budget into the event. That equates to much more than what we bring in from ticket sales and sponsorship money. The reason we can keep ticket prices so low is we effectively subsidise every ticket.

(If you want a good read on how expensive conferences are to run, please read http://www.andybudd.com/archives/2011/09/theres_a_lot_of_nonsense/ )

We've wanted to change this structure for a while. If the conference was all about Fuzzy Orange it would be fine, but it's not. We're not running our own MAX type event so we shouldn't be taking on the massive financial burden of it (and having to replace £8,000 worth of equipment on top of everything doesn't help!)

So the change in structure is ultimately this: we need to increase the price of tickets. You guys have to take on more of the cost.

Having spoken to a number of people about this, the general consensus has been "yup, raise prices. The conference is easily worth £200+. However I won't pay over £100".

Contradictory. And unfortunately that's been the response from the vast majority of folks.

So whilst we debated internally about what to do, we've actually taken on a number of large development projects and everything SotR related has simply went on the back burner. Hence the silence.

With the latest bunch of enquiries about 2012, we thought it was about time we at least said something, and the above is that something.

However we do still need to figure out what we are going to do because at this very moment, nothing, and I mean nothing, is planned.

We are speaking with some people/companies shortly about some ideas, but if the conference does go ahead the days of £50 tickets are over.

So back to the short answer ... right now there are NO confirmed dates for SotR2012.

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