One of the features we trumpeted about last year’s C&B was a hard enrollment limit of 60.  We sold out quickly, and, although we later scheduled an encore presentation, the short notice of the encore and its proximity to December holidays meant that some people who would have liked to attend were not able to.

We wanted to avoid that problem this year, so we selected a venue with more space, and we didn’t impose an enrollment limit.  Irony having a way of being ironic, this year we find ourselves hearing from people who are concerned that C&B 2011 will devolve into a teeming mass, thus giving up the intimacy of a small-group event.  None of us wants that.

So we’ve adopted a middle ground.  C&B 2011 will have a hard enrollment limit of 100 people.  Once the 100 spots are gone, they’re gone, and we won’t add any more.  This means that each participant is assured of ample time to talk with me, Andrei, and Herb, as well as the other C&B attendees.  Each will have the opportunity to ask questions and make comments during technical sessions.  Nobody will feel lost in a crowd, because there won’t be any crowds.  If you’ve been worrying that this year’s C&B won’t have the small-group feel of last year’s events, you can stop worrying.

The flip side is that there’s no possibility of an encore this year.  Last year, we were lucky to be able to find a time slot where Herb, Andrei, I, and the hotel all had availability, but we already know that that’s not going to be possible this year.  If you’re interested in being part of C&B 2011, you’ll want to sign up for the one and only occurrence: August 7-10 in Banff.

Between presentations on efficiently processing big data sets, taking advantage of the computational capabilities of GPUs, understanding the C++0x memory model, and more (all created just for C&B), plus the chance to exchange experiences and ideas with other top-flight C++ developers (not to mention Herb, Andrei, and me) in a setting with no more than 100 people, we think this will be the premier C++-and-performance-related event of 2011.  We hope you’ll be part of it.

Scott