cPanel Conference ’13: In the Big Easy

After spending three days (and three nights!) in the Big Easy, aka NOLA, or New Orleans for the layman, the term exhausted is hardly scratching the surface.  That may be a slight dramatization, but none the less - this year’s cPanel Conference ’13 was a jam packed experience for Limestone Networks and without a doubt for the other attendees as well.  Upon hearing that this year's conference had grown significantly since 2012, we felt fortunate to have secured a spot as a conference exhibitor.

The conference featured a multitude of talks by cPanel experts, spanning from customers to development and back, as well as a team of cPanel technicians on the floor to provide simple training lessons and to answer some of the more complicated questions that had been brewing up in everyone’s noggins.  With the cPanel Conference being smaller than conferences like HostingCon & WHD.Global, there was an opportunity to create a real sense of community, and cPanel did a fantastic job of facilitating.

At the end of the opening day, which existed mainly for exhibitors and guests to get settled in and setup their booths, police shut down the main strip of road in downtown to allow cPanel guests to be escorted by a marching jazz band to a boat at the water’s edge to eat dinner and have drinks.  It was a pleasant surprise when it appeared that the dock began to move as we set sail down the Mississippi river.  Upon returning, everyone was invited for festivities at Harrah’s.  Needless to say, I think everyone had a blast and night number one went off with a bang!

Day two of the conference brought the exhibition into full swing, with funny characters running around in cPanel branded Morphsuits, and a robed man towering above while hobbling around the conference floor on stilts.  Nonetheless, cPanel kept the New Orleans spice pumping throughout the event.  No one was about to forget we were all here in the Big Easy, not even for a minute.  Appropriately enough, that night everyone was loaded onto Mardi Gras-esque parade floats, and we were transported to a local nightclub, Republic, for more festivities that I doubt people need any help to imagine.

On day three, Limestone Networks had to cut out on the nighttime activities (we had an 8 hour drive ahead of us), but we did get to meet a ton of great people from other innovative companies from around the globe who were focused on helping hosts like us with their plethora of services, which definitely made the conference worth every drop.  Overall, the 2013 cPanel Conference was a very positive experience, and Limestone Networks is pleased to have been a part of another great hosting community event.