At 4AM Eastern, 145 people have signed up. We have room for about 300 people but that's an art more than a science.

The largest room holds 160 people, that's the room we'll use for the opening and closing sessions, known respectively as National Anthem and Fat Man Sings. The opener is at 8AM on a Saturday, so if there are 300 registrants we assume not all will be present, although we encourage everyone to be there. We have an overflow room that can hold 110 people.  (The other three rooms hold 60, 60 and 30 people each.)

Second, we know that since this is a free conference, not everyone will show up. That's okay. At BloggerCon II we had room for about 300, but we registered more, held our breath, and exactly the right number of people showed up. Murphy works in mysterious ways!

At some point we'll add a page that allows people to post their regrets, to make room for others. So we will continue to accept registrations after 300, but they will be on the wait list.

Now, enough about numbers, a bit about who's signing up. It's a very good group. We should have some excellent discussions and develop some important new relationships. I'm starting to think about the grid for this conference, and who of those who have signed up will make good discussion leaders.

A note to press people. Since we are all public writers, no special accomodations are made for professional journalists, who are totally welcome, but must register like anyone else, and are subject to the space limits. So if you're planning on covering this conference, please sign up asap.

We won't be able to honor anonymous registrations, so please be sure to specify at least a name and a location.

That's about it for now. If you have comments or questions please post them below.

# Posted by Dave Winer on 8/18/04; 4:21:39 AM - --