Apple addresses WWDC sellout, says that separate Tech Talks are coming this fall

Apple has posted a new notice on its (public) developer news site acknowledging the sellout of its Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC), and says that it will be holding Tech Talks in the fall in various cities ‘near you’.

“Enthusiasm for WWDC 2013 has been incredible, with tickets selling out in record time,” the notice reads. The conference sold out in a record 2 minutes when tickets went on sale yesterday, serving up all 5,000 seats quickly enough to stun most developers hoping to attend. This also marked the first year that Apple pre-announced the time that the tickets would go on sale, causing more of a stressful traffic jam than usual.

Apple also confirms in this notice that it will be serving up videos of WWDC during the conference itself. “For those who can’t join us in San Francisco,” it says, “you can still take advantage of great WWDC content, as we’ll be posting videos of all our sessions during the conference.”

Those videos have typically been made available days or weeks after events…sometimes months in years past. Making the videos watchable as the event is still happening will release some pressure for those developers hoping to learn about new technology announced during the keynote presentation.

Apple also says that it will be ‘hitting the road’ this fall with individual Tech Talks. Presumably those talks would be held in various cities. For reference, Apple held Tech Talks surrounding the release of iOS 5 and those were held in Berlin, London, Rome, Beijing, Seoul, São Paolo, NYC, Seattle and Austin, Texas. Those talks centered around presentations of new technologies in iOS, as well as time to speak to Apple engineers in lab sessions to solve tricky problems.

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Here’s the full Apple statement:

Enthusiasm for WWDC 2013 has been incredible, with tickets selling out in record time. For those who can’t join us in San Francisco, you can still take advantage of great WWDC content, as we’ll be posting videos of all our sessions during the conference. We’ll also be hitting the road this fall with Tech Talks in a city near you. Hope to see you there.

The WWDC conference has always been a gathering place for Apple developers but didn’t begin to sell out until 2008, not coincidentally the year that the iOS SDK was announced. That year it sold out in 2 months. Last year it sold out in 2 hours.

The lightning fast sellout led to a host of discussion on the topic, with some making a strong case for persistent education and consulting, and smaller, more personal conferences and others talking about just how irreplaceable the community around the conference is.