Can you feel the excite­ment in the air? Hear the squeak of glasses being polished,Threadless pack­ages being opened, plaid shirts being ironed and beards being fluffed? Next week, Wel­ling­ton plays host to the greatest most awe­some con­fer­ence in the world. Fact!

We’ve already made some recom­mend­a­tions of things for Web­stock attendees to do in Wel­ling­ton, but in case you haven’t booked your hotel yet and want our sug­ges­tions: we love the baths and the food at Hip­po­pot­amus in the Museum Hotel, we’re baffled by the exist­ence of a smoking floor and not impressed by the chocol­ate buf­fet & ser­vice at the Dux­ton, have had mar­velous times in the pool at the CQ Hotel, and though it’s a little fur­ther away,  we liked the Travelodge just fine.

We also sug­gest that you pack a car­digan in your satchel for the con­fer­ence, as often the air con­di­tion­ing can be overly enthu­si­ast­ic – and if it’s sunny, take sunglasses cos you’ll want to get some fresh air in Civic Square and that gets very bright. If it’s rainy, be care­ful on the treach­er­ously slip­pery bricks of pave­ments every­where.

Also! We wanna have a drink with you so we’re hav­ing the offi­cial Wel­ling­tonista Unof­fi­cial Web­stock Wed­nes­day War­mup!  Just like last year, you can meet people in relaxed beer-friendly sur­round­ings before the con­fer­ence prop­er begins, and/or solid­i­fy friend­ships & con­tacts you’ve made dur­ing the work­shops. Non-Web­stock-attendees are wel­come, but may feel quite sad that they’re miss­ing out. This year we’ll be at the Fork and Brew­er, upstairs in Bond Street, from 6pm on Wed­nes­day Feb­ru­ary 15. Spot us by our Web­stock satchels, prob­able iPhones and warm, wel­com­ing smiles.

(This isn’t an offi­cial Web­stock event, but they do like us, prom­ise!)