05/03/2021
These days we are “celebrating” the first anniversary of the first lockdown caused SARS-Cov2 pandemic. What should have been a great year, turned into something different. Let us look back a little to see what happened, especially in the software testing community we are trying to build.
Regular SANAE Software Testing BEER helped us to build QA and testing community around the series of informal networking events. That resulted in the decision to organize something bigger – BEER.EX. The first installment in October ’19 was a major success and a promising starting point (more info – BEER.EX part1, BEER.EX part2). The plan was to continue with small BEERs and expand to other cities within the country and use them as a marketing platform for the BEER.EX. Everything was ready to be launched in March ’20.
I have to admit that in the beginning, we were quite optimistic. We even announced that BEER vol.5 scheduled for 25th March will not be canceled as the situation might get better any day. How foolish it sounds nowadays. Anyway, we did not want to go online with the event as it would lose its informal networking dimension, so we waited. After 2 months, the lockdown was lifted, and BEER vol.6 happened as a goodbye party to Satori Stage that went out of business due to pandemic (more in our blog).
But what about the BEER.EX? New venue with larger capacity, 2-day format with the conference day, and the tutorial day, 10 speakers, 2 tutors, and even more. Everything armed and ready to happen in October. Everything but the sales. Mostly because of the budget freezes in companies, partially due to uncertainty we were not able to sell enough tickets. Along with some traveling restrictions still in effect and the possible 2nd wave outburst we came to the decision to put into effect our continuity plan and postponed the conference to April ’21.
22/02/2024
