eZ Conference - the biggest Open Source CMS Conference
The annual eZ Conference is the largest Open Source Content Management event in Europe that welcomes over 500 participants from around the globe. The 2007 event marked the first year that eZ introduced a sponsorship program for its Partners and Customers to gain marketing and business value from the conference.
During the 2006 eZ Conference, Partners were given the opportunity to exhibit and after positive feedback from the attendees and the Partners, the sponsorship program was implemented in the same model as most of the large IT conferences around the world.
The sponsorship program aimed to give an affordable entry cost for smaller Partners while also attracting larger Partners offering extensive visibility throughout the conference. As soon as the sponsorship model was announced to the Partners, subscriptions started. As expected the first and most eager to subscribe were the long standing traditional eZ Partners.
2007 International Sponsors Included:
- IBM
- WebDeal
- Rackspace
- VZT
- VisionWT
For partners and associated with earlier experience with the eZ Conference it were necessary to explain the great position that the conference have with Open Source CMS and the values that is given to sponsors. IBM used their sponsorship in order to better understand the local Open Source business model. All together almost a dozen of IBM's middle management team were visiting the conference during the two days.
Sponsors on a more regional level were also attracted to the event, for marketing value. Visit Grenland, aimed to get more tourists to the region were the conference was hosted and where the eZ Systems HQ is located. The local university college was represented with a booth, trying to recruit students from abroad.
“It's amazing to see how this conference has been growing from a small gathering of eZ Publish enthusiasts to a commercial market place like the one we see today” says Jan Aril Sigvartsen from the silver sponsor WebDeal AS. He is one of the few persons that has been attending all five eZ Conferences.
The creativity displayed by the sponsor booths was inspiring to see, and truly boasted well for the sponsorship program in 2007.
