Laravel Live Japan: What to Expect

[clears throat] Okay, we should be live. We should be good to go. So, hi everyone. Hi, Leah. Hi, David. Hey. Yeah. Hello. Hey. I'm glad you got stream streamard working. We're a few minutes late because of technical difficulties. It's like tech just wants to break or not work whenever you're trying to do something. Did restarting your computer just fix it or did you have to do anything else? Yeah, I just I just had to start restart my computer and everything works now. Yeah, [laughter] that's the first thing you should try when something wrong happens. It's funny. I was just on vacation and I went on a hiking trip with my friends and one of them is like um in it and most of his job is just telling people to restart their computers and I was telling him how frustrating it is that like most of the time when I have a problem and I wouldn't think restarting would fix it, it always does. Yeah. [clears throat] Yeah. the other day I had some issues and tried like an hour and and I try restart the computer and it works fine. [laughter] Yeah. So frustrating. But I think even more frustrating is when when somebody tells you like, "Oh, did you already do that? Did you already do that?" And they they just claim they did it, but they actually never did it. I think that's what they get a lot is they're like, "Oh, did you restart?" And they're like, "Yeah, I did. I did. And then finally they restart it and they're like, "Oh, that fixed it." It's like, "You told me you did that 30 minutes ago." [laughter] Exactly. Even even worse if if if you have to go there there in person to check it and then Yeah. It works if you do it. Let's see. [clears throat] Josh said, "Okay, I just got here myself, so you started at the right time." Okay. So, it was it was fate, Josh. Was fate the technical issues happen. Also, hi, Alex. Um, for everyone joining, we'd love to know where you're joining from. I'm joining from Colorado in the US. And I know I think both of you are joining from [clears throat] Japan. Yeah. Tokyo, Japan. Yeah. I think the time difference. Yeah. The time difference is what, like 13 hours, I think, if I'm not [laughter] mistaken. Something like that. It's what? Wednesday. Is Wednesday there? Yeah. Wednesday morning, 900 a.m. Yeah. I'm Tuesday at 5:00 p.m. So, [laughter] that always gets me. We have Abby here. Hi, Abby. And Josh is joining from San Francisco. So, close to me because I'm Mountain Time and San Francisco's PST. Cool. Hi, Rita. welcome in. Yeah, I guess we can go ahead and get started then. So, hi everyone. Um, we're here today to talk about Laravel Live Japan, which is the first Laravel Live in Japan. This year is the first one ever. And I'm here today with the organizers of uh Laravel Live Japan. So with David and uh Leotaa to talk about um what Laravel live Japan is as well as how it's kind of being organized and then answer common questions about it such as um why you should attend it in Japan and also like where you can buy tickets and all of those fun things. So if you two would like to go ahead and introduce yourself a little bit as well. You want to go first? [laughter] Uh okay. Yeah. Well, uh, okay. So, my my name is David. Uh, I am originally from Switzerland. I have moved to Japan like 11 years ago, I think, at this point. And, uh, I'm a software engineer at the Weiwork Japan. And obviously, yeah, I'm one of the organizers of, uh, PHP Tokyo uh, of the meetups and also the LA Life Japan conference. Yeah, nice to meet you. Cool. Um, hey everybody. My name is Ryotan Hamasaki. I'm also from Japan and uh I'm a software engineer at Laravel and I've been working on uh Laravel Nightwatch and I'm also um a part of PHP Tokyo meetup organizer team and um Lar live Japan organizer. And I forgot to do my intro as well because I've been on here so much. like people might might know who I am. Uh but I am Leah Thompson. I also work at Laravel with uh Leotaa, but I'm on the Devril team. So I'm more of our uh online communities and just doing normal Devril stuff like live streams here and speaking at conferences and stuff like that. But let's go ahead and get into talking more about Larva Larva live Japan. So let's talk about what it is exactly. So we already have some other Laravel lives. This is going to be our first one in Japan which is in Tokyo, Japan. Um but let's just talk more about what Laravel live Japan is. Yeah, Laravel live Japan um is an is the first Laravel conference in in Japan or in East Asia. Um and actually the PHP and a lot of community here in Japan is big. Uh there is like uh regional PHP conference. uh so many many PHP conferences here in Japan like PHP conference Japan is the mo the biggest one uh which had about 1,200 people attended and there are other regional PHP related conferences almost every month like in different parts of Japan um but most of the conferences here are kind of closed off in Japan and there are no international speakers, no international attendees. Um, so I wanted to uh connect the international global Laravel community from all over the world uh with the you know the local PHP Laravel community here in Japan. Um so I think yeah I think this is the first PHP related uh conference here in Japan that uh invites so many um international speakers and international attendees. So it's very special uh for us. No that's honestly great. I have seen a lot of post about like the meetups um PHPX Tokyo. I always see the post about that and like I'm always surprised by how big the community is cuz it's something like I don't really think about and you see the pictures and you guys have so many people attend um and it is really exciting to have a Laravel live Japan now and like you said to have the international speakers and stuff like that and I know everyone I've talked to about it is very excited that it's happening this year and like maybe they've already wanted to go to Tokyo and now they have the excuse to because they can go to the conference as Well, so I think it's honestly great. And I think you already kind of answered about why you decided to run it, but was it basically just to kind of create this conference that you can also that would have more like international speakers and to create more of a PHP conference there since there's already the larger meetup community. Yes. So [clears throat] the motivation was um you know as I said earlier I wanted to connect the the local Japanese um PHP and Laravel community with the international community because uh Laravel community is essentially uh you know global right when you go to Lon US Lon EU what what whatever Lon there are people from all around the world uh But Japan is kind of disconnected from this global community and and I thought uh yeah I wanted to change that because Japan should be part of the global lar community as well and there are great u developers here as well. Um yeah uh David do do you have any anything else to add on? Yeah. So I think yeah like connecting the communities um is uh one of the big goals I think but also when we think about where like Laravel related conferences are happening if you think geographically um from Japan's uh point of view there is India and Australia are probably the the closest one but still even India or Australia it takes like 9 10 hours flight from Japan. So I think there is like in East Asia there was it's kind of this black hole on the map there. There is no Laravel conference here and so currently it's kind of difficult for different reasons for Japanese engineers to go outside and attend an overseas conference. So we thought it might be better to actually bring the conference to Japan then. So I think that's an additional motivation to what Ruta just mentioned before. Gotcha. Yeah. I think that's a big like an important thing to note too is the traveling cuz it's like you might think like oh Laracon India and Laracon AU aren't that far away but then still if that's like nine something hours flight that is pretty far compared to just having it there in Tokyo. So I guess let's kind of get into um how do you pick speakers? So like whenever you're organizing this conference, how are you thinking about the talks that you want to have? How are you picking speakers for it and stuff like that? For speakers um if I take that question. Um so we wanted to make sure the talk all the talks are um educational, enjoyable, inspire uh inspiring and actionable and also uh we wanted to make sure that we have a good balance of topics like PHP and Laravel not only is PHP and Laravel but also uh let's say front end mobile apps and nontechnical talks. Yeah. and and lastly uh good balance of you know local speakers and international speakers and we've got so many nice um talk submissions so it was very you know um tough and difficult to choose speakers but it's a good problem yeah I I think we received so many interesting topics we could have easily we filled another day. Um so but yeah to add about like how how we chose or how we are choosing uh talks it's kind of I try to see it from the perspective of an attendee. Why would I go to a conference? Why would I make the effort to go there and see this talk? What kind of impact does it have? Um yeah, I think it it can have like an an impact in in regards to like uh there is something I can take away from this talk and I can apply it to my daily life or work or it can have like I don't know an an emotional impact maybe even but there must be some sort of an impact or yeah you need you need to feel something or you need to be able to take something away from it. I think that's uh what was important to me when uh making the decisions. I think that's honestly what I kind of go in like when I go to conferences, I'm expecting talks that either make me feel something. So, like if it's more of a soft talk, then I expect it to be more of like an emotional takeaway, you know, or maybe just something like um balancing work and burnout and stuff like that versus like technical takeaways, but then also wanting some technical talks that I can leave with like things to implement into my daily workflow or things to research and learn more about. Um, but I think it's also important like um you're saying to have the kind of blend of different things as well. So having like some front-end talks or some mobile talks as well and then I think also like splitting up the um kind of like difficulty level so that anyone regardless of if they're like more of a beginner or a senior dev can still take away something from the talks. And then I know you talked about as well having the balance of like native speakers or like local speakers and then international speakers. Um which I think some of the talks will be in Japanese as well, right? Yes. [clears throat] How is that kind of split going to be? So, we're going to have 15 speakers in total out of which 10 will be international and five will be uh locals. Yeah, actually we've just selected all the speakers maybe just yesterday. Uh but we we've only announced half of them. So, stay tuned. That's exciting. I think that's a good blend too, but I think it's really like cool to have some of the talks in Japanese and then some in English. Yeah, I think that Sorry, go ahead. Go ahead, David. Okay, thanks. Yeah, I think that just to to circle back to the goal why we are doing this in the first place. um to connect the the communities and so I I think that ties in very well with having local speakers and international guests and speakers, right? Mhm. [clears throat] No, especially like wanting to like create this too so that it is kind of being around the existing community like the PHP Tokyo community that you built up to make it more kind of like inclusive and feel more involved with the community. I think having the talks in Japanese does that as well. And then you're blending it with the international speakers and the kind of global Laravel PHP community by having the English ones as well. And I know people really enjoyed uh having the kind of Japanese and English toggles even just on the website like as soon as the website launched for Larvo Live Japan, people are super excited to see that. So yeah, because if we only had like [clears throat] English website, maybe Japanese people would not think that it's for me. Maybe it's for like international people. Yeah. So we wanted to make sure that um it's for the local community as well, not just international. Yeah. Let me share that as well. Okay. Sorry, I was trying to share the link in chat for the website that we're talking about. Of course, it's the English/en link for me right now. See, so I know you just said that you've picked all the speakers. So, that part of the planning is done. still announcing them and stuff but that part of the planning is done. What like what else with the kind of scheduling and like program for it like how is that coming together the like planning for the conference? Actually we have even though we we've closed the CFP for the regular talks we're going to launch another CFP for lightning talks. So um it's it's kind of common thing to have lightning talk session in tech conferences in Japan and usually at the um you know [clears throat] at some point in the conference there is a lightning talk session where um 10 speakers and go one after another and then each talk is five minutes. So you can yeah you can give some light talks and which is quite fun. So we wanted to bring it to Larville Lab Japan as well. So uh once we open the um CFP form for lightning talks you can and yeah you can submit as many talks as you want and yeah we're very excited about lightning talks as well. Yeah, I feel like in uh Japanese conferences like recently lightning talks have become more and more popular. Um and so some people like try to make a challenge out of it to to put as much wisdom and knowledge and sharing as possible in into these five minutes. So sometimes it's quite fun and uh yeah. So I had a couple questions like between what is the difference between like for example a sponsor talk and a lightning talk. So just to elaborate on that a bit. Um so a sponsor talk obviously is to kind of the goal is different right? It's to promote your service or application or what have you. While uh a lightning talk is really just a very condensed short talk where you kind of give uh tip bits and crumbs of of wisdom in in a short time, right? So that that's the difference. No, that's really exciting because I missed the original CFP. So I might I might apply for a lightning talk. Lightning talk soon. [laughter] I will I will do it. Do you plan on having the lightning talks? I know you said like back to back. Do you plan on like interspersing them between the full length talks as well? So, it's like a big talk, like a lightning talk, maybe like a break and then kind of over again or uh we're still thinking about the schedule, but [clears throat] uh we're leaning towards more around the uh the end of the conference, maybe uh the end of the uh day two. Um or we we might split uh into five lightning talks uh for each day. Yeah, I think that'll be good. I don't know how like they're normally structured in um like Japanese conferences for it. I know like I I've been to different conferences here in the US and that have lightning talks and each one does it a little bit of a different way, you know, where like maybe it's like a big talk and then a couple rapid fire lightning talks back to back. Um then another one I went to it was like a regular talk then a lightning talk then a break and stuff like that. I think honestly any way you do it will be fun. But it is nice having like little lightning talks as well as like a pallet palette cleanser from all the like very heavy like 30 minute technical Yeah. I actually haven't thought of having lightning talks after each regular talk but I think it's a great idea actually. Yeah. Let's let's see. I'm not trying to completely change your schedule, I promise. [laughter] And I guess because we kind of talked about already like the talks and different things. Um, but where is it? What do you what do you expect or what should attendees expect to learn overall from coming to Laravel Live Japan? And David, do you want to take that question? Um, yeah, sorry the audio was a little bit bad. Could you repeat the question? Okay. Yeah, I can repeat it. Um, like what from coming to the conference or like what should they expect to take away overall? Okay. Um, yeah. So, I'll go first. Uh, maybe can add something uh after that. So, yeah, overall uh like we mentioned, we we try to make uh an interesting program with different talks um different topics that covers a wide range of things like technical and non-technical. So um and it's also across different levels of experience I guess. So I hope we can um make a program that caters to like from beginners to experienced people. Uh I hope that everybody gets inspired um or discovers things you can do with Laravel and PHP they didn't think about before. Um, I hope they get inspired to finally uh tackle their own whatever goal it is. Um, yeah, or just, you know, restart that project you shelf like maybe two years ago or something. Um, yeah, I hope and I hope that um, yeah, everybody um can mingle and uh, meet awesome people, make friends. Yeah, I hope that that that's that's my personal goal. But uh you what do you think? Yeah. Um in terms of the talks and topics um you can learn a lot of things for example what's happening in the Laravel ecosystem you know so many things has been happening in the Laravel ES ecosystem uh not only on the open side uh side of things but also like products like Laravel cloud or nightw watch and I think it's so hard to uh keep up with what's happening So you can catch up with uh all the stuff happening in the larvae ecosystem in two days uh because you know Taylor is giving a keynote. So he will cover all the cool stuff uh that are happening in the ecosystem also not only Laravel but also PHP itself. um uh Roman Prosonsky who is the founder of PHP foundation will be giving a talk about what's happening in the PHP development and what's next and also there are some other talks about you know uh JavaScript tool chain that you know uh void zero is working on I think it's pretty cool to learn about those front end stuff so many cool topics across the uh topics and also you know the I think the vibes is a bit different from other larons um um the culture is different also we have a great host uh Daniel Colburn he's he's very popular in a um Laravel uh community he's given a talk in all the larons but actually he grew up in Japan So he speaks uh Japanese as well. So he's going to host the conference in English and Japanese which is very fun. Yeah. And we also have the afterparty so you can enjoy, you know, connecting with the people and also some Japanese food as well. Yeah. No, that sounds great. I didn't realize Daniel was like he grew up in Japan. I didn't realize that. Yeah, actually I met him at Laron AU in 2023 before I joined Laravel and I had a I had lunch with him and suddenly he spoke to me in Japanese. [laughter] I was so surprised like just out of nowhere he just started speaking to you in Japanese. Yes, that's funny. And he was also one of the speakers. Yeah, it's like a fun party trick, you know, just like surprise people. So that time I already decided to invite him as a as a host if I had, you know, if I ever had a chance to host Largo live or Laravel conference in Japan. No, I think I'll be a great like MC host for the conference. And then you were talking about the community too, like the vibes and the community um will be different at Laravel Live Japan, which I think is kind of a great segue to talking about kind of the community you've already built up. So talking about like how this kind of got started, right? So you already had PHPX Tokyo um and then it kind of turned into you now hosting Laral Life Japan. So let's kind of talk about what what PHPX Tokyo is. So talking about the beat up actually uh everything started from Laravel Live Japan. So David and I uh went to Lon AU in 2024 I think. So and uh after after the conference we were chatting about uh wouldn't it be cool like if we had this kind of conference in Japan. So the idea everything started from Laravel live um but we wanted to start something small. So we wanted to build an intern international Laravel and PHP community here in Tokyo first and so that we can do some experiments let's say live translation language barrier is the you know one of the biggest challenge for us to uh host the international conference. So we wanted to make sure that everyone you know it's accessible to everyone regardless of the language they speak. So yeah so it's kind of started as an experiment and a small step towards the conference. Yeah. I think maybe even before Laron Australia, we were kind of just like jokingly like talking about having a a Laravel conference in Japan and yeah, then we went went to Australia. We we talked to a lot of people there and like everybody in the community was very excited about the idea and so we felt like yeah at at that point we we basically we have to make it happen. And so yeah, when we came back to Japan, it was like um okay, so but h how do we tackle this? How do we approach this? Um and so we had the idea uh like said to start small with a with a meetup and so the meetup is kind of like the the proof of concept or the test bed if you will. Um and yeah, we learned uh quite a few things uh from these meetups. Um personally for me one of the things I noticed is like um yes the language barrier is real and we definitely need some solution uh to cater to English speakers and Japanese speakers. Um but the other thing uh I noticed is there is definitely like interest there in connecting with engineers like from both sides. So in the end it doesn't really matter what language you speak because everybody comes together with with this common interest and so yes you need a little bit of help maybe with with tools that help with the translation and stuff but ultimately it works out because everybody shares the same interest and goals I guess. Mhm. I feel like I kind of feel that just in the like Laravel PHP community in general too, like at any conference I go to, anything like that. I feel that like common interest of just wanting to talk to each other and learn more about what what each other's like building and stuff like that like how we're using this tool just like trying to form those bonds because of the common interest of like Laravel and PHP like regardless if there's any like slight barrier of um language or anything like that. Yes, exactly. So, how did I didn't realize though that the meetup started because you wanted to do the conference. So, I think that's really really cool. That's like I want to do this conference. Let me do a meetup first. But how did you grow the meetup? Like you decided to start it. How did you kind of grow it to what it is now? So, [clears throat and cough] so when we decided to start a meetup, I just tweet tweet about it on Twitter and you know a lot of people showed an interest and it was hard to you know build a community just in uh Twitter. So we created a discord server for the community so that people can hang out and we can announce uh some some stuff for the conference. So and I think almost you know around 100 people joined the discord server within week within a week. Um so the you know it was a big demand actually hidden demand and uh in the first meetup we had already like 40 people in the first meetup which was great man and uh we also needed a venue because you know we're working and I mean David is working for we work Japan but um yeah we we needed a venue And we I reached out to some uh company here in Tokyo and they are super kind like they they're going to be um sponsor not just for the venue but also food and drinks. So we we are you know very lucky and I'm so grateful for them u to be a sponsor. So yeah and from there uh the the community grew uh you know like I think we had five meetups so far. It feels like more I feel like you guys have done more but having 40 people at the first meetup I feel like is a really good turnout. Yeah, I remember like last year we had our first meetup in March if I remember correctly and uh like said we had like around 40 attendees and shortly after I went back to Switzerland and I attended the Laravel meetup from the local um uh people there and and like I mean obviously Switzerland is is a small country but even they they were they are doing this for many years already and um they never had the numbers I think. Um so they were very surprised, very nice people. I talked to them about organizing and I told them we just had our very first meet up and like 40 people attended and they they were quite surprised about it. Yeah. Yeah. But I think it shows Oh, I'm sorry. I was going to say I think it shows like the need for something like that in Tokyo too like in Japan which what how many people were at the last meetup if you know I think around 40. So we constantly have around 40 people. Yeah. Yeah. That's good. And what did you learn like from doing the meetups, right? What did you learn from running that that has helped you when it comes to planning the conference? Now, I already touched a little bit [snorts] uh on some of the things. Maybe you want to add something. Yeah, what we learned from running the meetup. And of course, uh, as David mentioned, live translation. Actually, I built a live translation app myself. Um, it's built with Lava and some um, yeah, websocket stuff. And yeah, it works pretty well. Uh, I just need to make sure it works with, you know, bigger audience at the conference. And apart from that, um, yeah. Um so when I started the TO PHP Tokyo meetup I wasn't sure whether you know Japanese people are interested in uh this kind of international meetup or event because it's very uncommon to you know in Japan that people the local people attend international events um especially in PHP community um But we learned that they actually they are actually interested in international events and connecting people from you know uh different places. Um so yeah I'm sure that um yeah there's a big um interest and demand for Laravel Live Japan as well. And in terms of the program um yeah I think at the PHP Tokyo meetup we also have different um you know mix of uh topics not just about PHP and Laravel but also some nonPHP Laravel topics for example uh AI MCP or non-technical talks. So yeah, so I wanted to make sure that we cover those topics at the conference as well. And then we do have a question too, which is perfect timing. It's like, wait, what? There's a Laravel meetup in Yeah, there's PHPX uh Tokyo, which is the meetup that um David and Leotaa organized. And now we're having Larva Live Japan in Tokyo this year as well. And they're also organizing that. Yeah, it it's actually fun because we sometimes at the meetups we had people who are not living in Tokyo. They were just on vacation. They were just dropping by and like, "Oh, I just saw that there's a Laravel or a PHP meetup and I just wanted to check it out." And that was so fun to see. When I'm traveling, I try to look that up and it's like, is there a meetup I could draw I could like drop in while I'm there? But usually it's not exactly. Yeah. Yeah. That's such a fun experience. So, we talked about the language for the talks and stuff like that, but let's talk about like what else attendees can expect and like how people can get involved. So kind of answering um like I guess some questions like common questions people might have about Laravel live Japan. Um touching on the language very briefly again because you were talking about the live translation app you built. So that will be used for all of the talks for the conference as well, right? Yes, for all of the talks. So you can see the live translation in English and Japanese all the time on the main screen. So you can see the uh the translation and transcript uh next to the slides and also you can scan the QR codes to see the live translation on your phone or uh laptop as well. Yes, feels really cool. also think yeah I'm also thinking about something like to help people communicate with each other you know uh you know uh regardless of the language they speak uh so that's another app uh that I'm kind of working on right now that's exciting I needed that when I was teaching like very badly when I was teaching That'd be really cool. I like the idea of having the translation right next to the slides like as the speaker is like presenting. I really like that idea. What about the ticket pricing for the conference? Actually, it's quite affordable compared to other lar conferences um outside of Japan. And it's about uh 50 uh USD, which is which is actually uh 8,000 Japanese yen for two days. Um so because Oh, David has Yeah. Awesome. I think he's back. demo for a sec. Yeah, cool. Um, so we wanted to make it affordable because most of the developer conferences in Japan are free or quite affordable because uh these conferences are run by uh volunteers and sponsors so that people can you know it's so easy to uh join for people. So if we, you know, uh, if we make the ticket pricing, you know, the same around the same pricing as Lon US or EU or whatever, uh, I think Japanese people, you know, wouldn't uh, make it and so we wanted to make sure it's the same standard. Yeah. And I think it's a great opportunity for, you know, international people as well. you know it you have you always have to uh pay for the travel and lodging hotel. So but the ticket pricing the conference pricing it's quite affordable. So I think it's a great Yeah. Yeah. Great excuse to come to Japan. [snorts] No, I think so too because I I was going to say that as well is that I think the affordable pricing helps for international speakers because like when you're looking at the travel prices and stuff like that, it might be like, "Oh, I don't know if I can swing it." But then when the tickets are so affordable, I think it makes it like easier to justify. Also, I mean, going to Japan in general, if you need the excuse, the conference is that, you know, just go, you get to go to Tokyo and meet more people in the community. Yeah. If you haven't been to Japan, now is your time. This is the chance. See, Casser had asked um when where can you share website for the event? Yes, I just shared the website in the chat. Um and then if either of you want to answer when and where it is as well. Uh when uh yeah uh uh it's going to happen on uh May 26 27th two days and in Tokyo. and we have a great venue as well. And we have the afterparty on day one as well. No, that's fine. I think most of the after parties are on day one for the conferences, right? I always forget that. I think so. Yeah. Some conferences have after party on, you know, all all days, every day. Yeah. [laughter] Every year. every day is party. [laughter] What is the um venue for the conference too? And like what is the venue near? The venue um it's a it's a bit uh far from the central area in Tokyo, but the venue is amazing. Uh it's basically like a music concert venue and it's kind of it's Yeah, I think it's pretty new. I think it was built around five years ago and uh it was a big stage and nice very nice chair soft and you know it's good for your Yeah. [laughter] We love soft chairs. Yes. You know usually uh the the chairs on the conference is very hot. It's like sometimes it's just the cheap chairs that they have to like fold out. Yeah. plastic ones after like Yeah, after like 10 minutes you're in pain. Yeah, it's very nice. It's like a theater and uh the sound the audio system is very good as well and uh the surrounding areas is nice. Uh lots of green and lots of nice uh cafes and restaurants. Yeah. I think in general you could say um even though it's technically still in Tokyo, it's kind of almost like a suburb kind of area. Um but that being said, there are very good like direct trains to the the center of Tokyo. Um but then you also have uh access to nature um within like 30 minutes or whatever you can go and be in the mountains basically. So yeah, you have a good balance there. Oh, that's great. I think you just sold me on it on trying to go anyway. You just had to say mountains. I'm like, I could go to the conference and then I could go see nature nearby. Oh, yeah. You just have been hiking, right? So, yeah. Let's see. Trying to get to the different parts of the website here. But um back to tickets a tiny bit. We talked about the ticket pricing and then I saw um you also offer is it a discount for tickets for students or is it free tickets for students or it's actually free tickets for students. So yeah, you can apply for you can submit this uh application form from the ticket page and yeah and you can join for free if you're a student. And you said it's on the ticket page. To apply for it. You can find the Yeah, you can find the link to the form on the ticket page. Let's see. Let me do a screen share. There we go. So, I'm on the ticket page for it. And then down here, you can hit apply for the free student tickets if it'll load. Yeah. Okay. And then you just get there by hitting tickets on the website. And there's the beautiful website. Let's see. Um and then someone said three prices. What's different? What's different in the uh so we offer uh group discounts if you're coming with your friends or your colleagues and we have group discounts for three people and more or 10 people or more. Got that makes sense. Um and then eligibility. We talked with the talks about trying to make um like the talks of the conference will be all inclusive basically like you'll have different levels. You'll have some front-end ones. So can people attend if they're a beginner who maybe has never even used Laravel? [clears throat] Yeah, definitely. um you know beginners um yeah beginners are welcomed and uh you know if you're a beginner you might not understand everything in talks but um I don't think it's all about that attending a conference is not all about understanding everything in the talks um but also you know it's more important to connect with people get inspired and get motivated and Maybe you might find some role models as a developer and make friends. So yeah, it's definitely worth joining even if you're beginner and you can still have some takeaways from talks as well. Some talks are more uh you know senior uh advanced levels but we also offer some uh talks for um intermediate or beginner levels. Yeah, I actually also want to extend an invitation to people who um are from different communities who are maybe using different text stacks and are just curious and want to see what's on the other side of the fence basically. So yeah, it doesn't matter if if you have used Laravel for I don't know 10 years or or never at this point. If you're just curious then yeah, feel free uh to join. I can definitely attest to that for like Laracons and stuff too because when I went to Laracon US in 2024, I was mainly in the JavaScript community, mainly like React, JavaScript, didn't like only have like three weeks of Laravel experience and here I am because I went and likeworked, fell in love with the So definitely recommend going regardless. Nice. And then I'm sure um I'm sure you've gotten lots of questions about this too, but how does the visa process work for this? So, can you get like visa support for I guess people to attend and for speakers? Yeah, if your country requires visa to visit Japan, um we uh we help you uh by providing you with a invitation letter uh for the conference which you can attach to your visa application. So the visa requirements uh differs um depending on which country you're coming from. So uh maybe you should check uh with your embassy or something, but so we can help with the invitation letter. Yeah. And you can um apply for the invitation letter from the ticket page as well. Right there. Let's see. And then for like traveling and staying, um, is there [clears throat] any hotels or places that you recommend or is it mainly are they on They should be on the website, Yeah. Look at that. Yeah. [clears throat] So, there are many options uh near the venue. So, these hotels are uh all uh around the venue area. Um, but you know, as David said, uh, it's not it's a bit suburb in Tokyo. So, if you want to explore the city, um, maybe, uh, you might want to stay in more central area. Um, but you can also, um, like there's a good um, public transportation from the central area to the conference venue. Um or you can you can stay different areas maybe during the conference um you can stay you know around the venue and then you can move to other areas after or before after the conference. So, kind of regardless of if you stay, so these hotels are right like pretty close to the venue, but even if you stay a little bit further away, you should be completely fine getting to it because of public transportation. Yes, there's a direct train, right? Yeah. So, public transportation in Japan and in Tokyo in general is very reliable, safe, and clean, and uh it's very efficient. So, getting around is no problem at all. And yeah, like Gita said, from basically what what would be Central Tokyo to the venue, there is a direct line. So yeah, that's so nice. I'm so jealous of nice public transport. And then for the venue itself, um like is the venue accessible in general? does have accessibility for wheelchair users, stuff like that. Yeah, definitely. Uh it's accessible to wheelchair users and the venue itself is quite new. So I I think it's quite accessible uh you know to everyone. Yeah, I think it it should be up to the latest standards basically. Yeah. Let's see. And I think we touched a little bit on like what what all is near the venue and kind of in Tokyo in general, but do you have any specific recommendations that you would tell people they'd have they should definitely [clears throat] see near or around Tokyo if they're there for the conference? Do you David, do you have any recommendations? I've been in Japan so long, so Well, yeah. I mean, at this point, I I cannot consider myself a tourist anymore as well, but um well, I would say like it it really depends on your interests, I guess. And also if you've been here before or not. So obviously if it's the first time and and you you like to go to the like um popular uh places then yeah go and see Tokyo Tower or Sky Tree. My recommendation would be Sky Tree because it's it's higher and you you you see the the true scale of Tokyo which is mindboggling every time I I see it. Um, uh, by the way, from from the the mountain top I just mentioned earlier, you also kind of get a a sense of the scale of Tokyo. It's a really nice view. Um, but yeah, then if you're more into like traditional things, there are a lot of temples and shrines and like uh kind of like old quarters and stuff like old streets. Um it's yeah there are many things to see but but then if you're more into like let's say night life then there are many um exciting places like Shibuya is very famous I guess Shinjuku um yeah and I mean there are so many great like restaurants and bars and like that there is something for everybody for every taste. Um, if you're a foodie, then you are in luck because I I think if I remember correctly, like Tokyo is the the city with the most Michelin stars in the world or something. So yeah, just uh go out and try as many things as possible. Basically, it's my advice. That's just selling it even more because that's just making Tokyo sound, I don't know, even better than I was already thinking of it. Which you mentioned food, too. Do you have any like authentic Japanese food recommendations either like near the venue or just in like central Tokyo? Uh I do have a couple very specific recommendations, but I think we will put out a guide later and I can uh put in a few of those. Uh but from from a native perspective, what kind of dish or food should people try? Definitely when coming to Japan or to Tokyo, I guess maybe if you if you eat raw fish, definitely try sushi. you know, there are so many authentic sushi restaurants in Japan and some um you know, or some local uh bars or it's called isizakaya in Japan. It's like uh authentic uh like traditional uh local style uh restaurants and and bars. Yeah, you should definitely go there. Um but I think in general you can find um nice places and more in the central area. Yeah. Rather than the the conference area. I mean the conference area is very convenient and you can find uh many uh food options but as a tourist maybe yeah it might be better to try in central area. Gotcha. I think a guide will be good. like a guide will be really really good. Oh, there there's one one more thing I want to add because I I feel like sometimes like the perception of of the cuisine of the Japanese cuisine is is mostly around like seafood and raw fish and sushi and this these kind of things. But I would highly recommend trying beef in Japan. Any kind of beef dish. I know. Yeah, ramen. Gosh, I love ramen. But like I'm also thinking of like packaged ramen in the US would be different than eating ramen in Japan. Jas like what is the weather like around because Live Japan's in May. What season will that be? What will the weather be like? I think it's the perfect season. It's uh it's between spring and summer. And uh it's not hot, it's not uh cold. Summer in Japan is like crazy. It's it goes really hot. 40. 40 degrees Celsius. I don't know the Fahrenheit. Uh 104. I looked it up. 104. Man, that's hot. Is it humid there, too? But I think Very very that that's what makes it even more terrible. [laughter] Yeah. Don't come to Japan in summer. I did not. Nope. [snorts] Not recommended. But I think um perfect. Yeah. So I I think this was one of the um most important factors when choosing the dates as well because um like literally like two or 3 weeks later the rainy season will start. So that's when it it starts getting really warm and and humid. And before that um obviously there is uh the cherry blossom season but it's very very crowded. everything will be booked out and obviously it's very beautiful but it's it's going to be very crowded. So we think between the cherry blossom season and the rainy season is kind of the ideal Yeah. time to to do this. No, it sounds like perfect timing. Sounds like good planning too because I I know Laracon US was in Denver last year and normally Denver is not like super crazy in the summer but it was like our most humid week like I think it was like record-breaking humidity in Denver during it and we were all so hot. So very glad that it shouldn't be that bad. Um yeah, I think we're going to start wrapping up a little bit but two more questions. Um, if anyone is interested in sponsoring kind of Larvo Live Japan, who do they talk to or how would they go about sponsoring it? Yeah. Uh, we're still looking for sponsors and um there is a sponsor interest form on the website, the conference website, and you can submit the form and and we're going to reach out to you with the prospect us. Yeah. And we can give you more details. Gotcha. I just dropped the link for the website once again, but it's the one we showed earlier and talked about as well. Um, and also if anyone is interested in going to Laravel Live Japan and wanting to buy a ticket, uh, Laravelive.jp, the website is the place to go for that as well. And then I believe there's one more. Oh, how can someone convince their employer to let them attend? Do you have any suggestions for that one? Yeah, it's a tough one. Um, I mean, uh, when I went to, uh, when I went to Laron US for the first time, which was 2018 and I was working for a Japanese company and no one went to uh, conference outside of Japan. So I talked to my boss and you know it's so hard to convince them but I shared everything that I can take away from the conference like in terms of like um you know technical talks and connecting with the community and I also uh promised that I will write some blog posts about uh attending the conferences and so Uh it you know we had a conference a company tech blog uh so which might help uh you know the company hire some people uh in terms of like uh because people are interested in conferences and if you have if your blog post if your company's blog post had uh something some topics about the conference and yeah from someone who not actually attend it. It's quite interesting. So I think writing a blog post is one of the good um you know excuse or the way to convince your company. David, do you have any other tips? Yeah. Yeah, it's a it's a tough one. If somebody knows a good way, then yeah, I would also like to know. But uh yeah in addition to what Rita said um I think in one of the companies I worked for we had kind of like workshops and study sessions like company internal where I basically had to relay the knowledge I I obtained at the conference to like junior engineers or other engineers team members. Um yeah, maybe that that could be like a you know something. But those are I would just say of like going through the schedule and like seeing what talks are being given and trying to like relate them to your like daytoday or what your work is doing and like possibly like doing an even an internal document of like takeaways from it or like doing like a little meeting once you're back of like teaching your findings you learned during the conference to your team possibly could convince your work but besides that I have no ideas. Yeah, could be an argument. I mean, it's worth a try at least. But yeah, I think we're a little bit over an hour. Uh, so we'll start wrapping up, but thank you both for coming on stream today and talking about Laravel Live Japan uh today with me. We kind of covered what Laravel Live Japan is, which is the it's an in-person conference in Tokyo. It's the first Laravel live or even Laravel conference in um Japan I believe I know it is for Tokyo. It's happening this May is for uh really anyone regardless of skill level or even if you're new to Laravel or kind of PHP and um we kind of went over how to attend which if you are interested in attending you can go to the website that I shared in chat and I'll also pin it again larvalive.jp JP to get um tickets as well. And then David and Leoda, do you have like any kind of closing remarks you want to give? Like tell people where they can find you or where to reach you if you have if they have any questions about Laravel Live Japan and stuff like that. Yeah, I [clears throat] can go first. Uh yeah, thank you Leah. Thank you everyone for joining. I'm super excited about the conference. and the we have secured so many great speakers and yeah so we wanted to invite so many people from not only Japan from all over the world and you're all welcomed and uh you can find all the details from the not only the website but we also have the uh Twitter account uh Laravel JP Laravel live JP and you can find all the new announcements from the Twitter and LinkedIn as And so if if you have any questions, you can reach out to the the conferences Twitter account or or myself. Uh my Twitter handle is Avo Salmon A or Salmon Basically Avocado and Salmon. Let's see. Okay, I posted the Larville Live JP Twitter link is in chat. Let me try to get yours. There we go. Sorry, it takes me a second to find the links. Yeah, thanks. Yeah, David. Yeah. Um, yeah, thanks uh for hosting this stream, for having us. Um I hope uh we will create a great conference that caters to everybody's taste that is enjoyable for everybody. Uh again I want to extend an invitation for everybody who is kind of still on the fence. Um yeah um again we hope we can u attract more sponsors uh more attendees and uh but I'm sure it will be a great conference. Um yeah uh yeah please reach out if you have any questions uh via the website or even direct messages. Um uh my handle for Twitter would be uh offsk Dave I think was it I'm looking it up as you're talking. There [laughter] we go. Yeah. So, if you're unsure, if you have questions, just reach out. And uh but yeah, I hope to to meet everybody in in Tokyo soon. And you also, you guys said that the um CFP for Lightning Talks will be releasing soon, right? Yes, very soon. So everyone remember you can apply to if you didn't apply to speak for a regular talk which I didn't because I time got the best of me. You can still apply for lightning talks if you need kind of the excuse of speaking to go to Tokyo. So be sure to apply for that. And you can, if you missed us going over all the great things to do in Tokyo and Japan, if you're visiting, make sure to watch back that because I think it will convince you that you should go to Laravel Life Japan. And yeah, thank you all for being here. Bye. Hope to see you in May [clears throat] in Tokyo. Thank you, Leah. Yeah, see you. Thank you everybody. Bye. See you.