I’ve gotten this question from a bunch of people in the past two days. This isn’t a +1 event; because we had to exercise such painful editing on the invite list, I’m sure you’ll understand that bringing your spouse, business partner, or employees to the conference would not only be a problem for us numbers-wise, but would add insult to injury to the people who applied to be here but didn’t make the final list.
That said, if you’re not applying for a travel scholarship and are not planning to join one of the group cottage rentals, you can of course travel to Savannah/Tybee with anyone you like. Here is the guiding principle you should plan to observe if you’re thinking about combining business with pleasure:
Scheduled conference time, including any planned meals and/or social events, will be open only to those on the invite list. If you travel with others, they must be on their own and entertaining themselves during these times, not hanging out in the conference locations. This is a firm rule, to keep the focus on the people invited to participate.
And really, truly, your wife/husband/child/colleague is awesome, we know, and they get along with everyone. But it would just be completely unfair to include them in this event when we’ve had to exclude so many who actually applied to come and were almost on the invite list. Please respect this boundary.
If we wind up with multiple “WordPress Widows,” maybe they could all go into Savannah for the day together or something. There are lots of tour companies, scenic stuff, places to drive to, shopping, etc. Or if the weather is nice, they could go kayaking or something. It is very easy to occupy someone for a day in this location. 🙂
I’ll still answer the individual emails that have asked about this, but thought I’d post this here so that if others are wondering the same thing, everything will be clear.