The ELF conference in Turkey, First european lockpick championships, Lockcon … not to mention work and family life … it is a bit much at the moment…
So I took a rather dramatic step: I decided to officially take some time off from work. Meaning that from January 1st 2010, I will be no longer working full time for CryptoPhone and create some more time for the ELF conference and locks in general (although working at CryptoPhone remains my first priority). There already is a pile of requests for workshops, presentations and other lock related fun. Seems like 2010 is going to be an interesting year ….
I receive a lot of questions about LockCon and the ELF conference. People want to book flights early (while it is still cheap). If you do want to book please let me know (drop me a mail) and make sure to arrive in Istanbul on May 26 (or earlier) as LockCon will officially start on May 27 at 09:00 AM. And maybe (if we can get a lot of high quality content) we might change the opening of LockCon to May 26 20:00 PM. So please make sure you are in Istanbul by then….
On Friday May 28 the first official European lockpick championships will take place at the ELF conference ground. On Friday we will do the first rounds in the lockpicking, impressioning and safe dialing competitions, and on Saturday there will be the finals for these three disciplines. In the evening on Saturday the 29th the champions will be honored at the gala dinner. On Sunday evening most of us will travel back…
The biggest challenge we are currently facing is to find cheap places to sleep for the lockcon attendees. Istanbul is a nice place and in 2010 it is even the official european capital of culture. Meaning that all hotels are booked (or are not offering low prices) because it is ‘the place to be’. We are exploring options to get beds for a low price but can not make any promises yet…. work in progress …
To be continued shortly …
Hope to hear some sort of plans that could be followed and reasonable prices (flight + accomodation) so that I could attend 🙂
Working hard on it Jaakko!
Can’t wait, Barry! I will be there come hell or high water! And I’m confident that Jaakko & I can charm some locals into letting us sleep on their floor if it comes to it. 🙂
Hopefully I can make it this year. should be a blast, has anyone else considered hostels?
It’s the hotels I am working on and will report back shortly …
Hey Everyone!
Creating a list/map of hotels and hostels in the area has been relegated to me and I’ve been a bit slow on it, but you should all see an update soon as soon as the list is finished and sent to Barry.
I will be taking into consideration proximity to the conference, transit, and availability of Internet service.
Stay tuned!
Hi, Barry, et. al.
Is there a location that we could ship our locks & tools to in Istanbul prior to the conference? I’m going to have to recheck luggage a few times during my flights (seeing a few other places along the way) and I’d prefer to avoid the major hassle of hauling locks around or explaining my picks in multiple countries.
Thanks,
-Schuyler