This year’s hurricane season has been hugely impactful for us here at cPanel. Our human and non-human families have been touched by the flooding that happened as a result of Hurricane Harvey, and much of the cPanel Community is being impacted by Hurricane Irma in Florida. With the cPanel conference being hosted in Fort Lauderdale in just 15 days, we’re keeping a very close eye on the developments there. This post will be the best place to check for updates, but let’s talk about where we right now.

This year’s conference, brought to you by the hurricanes Harvey and Irma.

What we know:

1. All members of the conference team are safe and accounted for.
2. The planning of the cPanel conference was impacted by Harvey.
3. The conference will be impacted in some way by Irma.

What we don’t know:

1. The current state of the conference venue. (updates below)
2. The current state of the evening event venues. (updates below)
3. How travel will be impacted.  (updates below)
4. Pretty much anything else. We’re pretty confident that we’re set now.

Updates

1. Online registration for the 2017 cPanel Conference is now closed.
   • If you were planning to attend and were unable to register prior to now:
     • If you are a cPanel Partner, email your account manager.
     • All others email benny.
2. We will be changing venues due to construction at the W Fort Lauderdale. Our new venue is the Ritz-Carlton Fort Lauderdale. We were unable to confirm this move until after the Ritz-Carlton re-opened and assessed any damage done by Hurricane Irma.
3. The W does not re-open until September 16th. All attendees who booked their hotel reservations at the W as part of the cPanel Conference block will receive emails from the Ritz-Carlton confirming the transfer of their reservation by Tuesday, September 19th. If you have not received your reservation by Tuesday morning, please contact the W for further information.
   • If you booked your hotel stay by any other means, you can either keep your reservation at the W (and just walk the two blocks to the conference) or you can contact the W after they re-open about moving your reservation.
4. The Evening Event venues (The Blue Martini, and Stache) are open, or planning to open, before the conference.
5. The Speaker schedule has been updated to three tracks to accommodate the new room configuration at the Ritz-Carlton.
6. Vendors will still have space, and are in fact moving to a much more highly-trafficked area. We sent an update to them this morning, and should have updated booth number information for them by Tuesday the 19th. You can see your new exhibitor’s guide here.

If you have more questions feel free to post in the comments below, or find me on twitter, and I’ll answer ASAP.