The second annual SANDcamp (San Diego Drupal Camp http://sandcamp.org/) was January 23rd and 24th. The non-conference was a great success, with over 200 Drupalers in attendance. The new location at Balboa Park’s Hall of Champion was a dramatic improvement over last year and the organizing team http://sandcamp.org/information/event-organizers did an outstanding job. If you missed this year’s event, SANDcamp 2011 will be January 29th and 30th. The plan is to have the camp the week before the Superbowl every year, so plan your decade out now.

The entire Achieve Internet team attended SANDcamp 2010 and our CTO, Bill O’Connor gave a presentation on Scaling Drupal. (See Prepare to Scale http://achieveinternet.com/blogs/prepare-scale) Scaling was arguably the hottest topic of the event. Bill was originally concerned that he only had enough material for 30 minutes, however after a number of questions and open discussions by the 60 plus Drupalers in attendance, the presentation went an entire 90 minutes. The event finally broke up after everyone realized they were missing lunch. The best damn conference lunch this attendee has ever had by the way.

Without a doubt the best part of these events is seeing fellow Drupalers and making new friends. I got a chance to reconnect with Cary Gordon (http://drupal.org/user/53667) of the Drupal Association. Cary is tirelessly working on improving all the Drupal events, from Cons to Camps to Sprints. I can tell you his hard work is paying off, the events are much approved since my first event in 2006. A new friend I made this last weekend was Susan Rust from Green Bird Media (http://Greenbirdmedia.com). Susan and her crew were amazing this weekend doing everything from registration to lunch. Did I mention how good lunch was? A big thanks to Troy Shields (http://troyshields.com/) for arranging lunch and the after party, the restaurant Saigon on Fifth was a perfect spot. Rumor is a few Drupalers didn’t recover from the after party!

The Achieve Internet team tries to attend both Drupalcons and as many camps as possible every year. Our next scheduled event is Drupalcon San Francisco, however if anyone is having a camp in the US please let us know.