The Laravel Podcast

The Laravel Podcast is brought to you by Tighten,

your friendly neighborhood Laravel experts.

Check us out at tighten.com

and also by other sponsors you will hear about later in the episode.

Hey, and welcome back to Laravel Podcast Season Seven.

I'm your host, Matt Stauffer, CEO of Tighten.

And in this season, I'm joined every episode by a member of the Laravel team.

Today I'm talking to my recently promoted friend, Abby Gilson, Field Marketing Manager at
Laravel.

Abby, would you say hi and share a little bit about what you do at Laravel?

Hello, yes, I'm Abby Gilson.

I'm the field marketing manager at Laravel, which means that I run all of our events from
planning to execution and collaborate with the marketing team.

Yes.

And I hope you don't mind me saying this, but you may have heard of Abby as Gen Z Abby if
you hang out in the Ian Landsman areas, eras of the internet Internet.

What I understand of the backstory of this is that, you know, Ian I I feel like Ian's
really close to my age, so he's probably an elder millennial.

Maybe he's a really young Gen X and you guys were at some kind of a conference together
and he just appreciated that you had like here's the type of partying and hanging out that

we're gonna do kind of Gen Z energy.

Is there anything more behind it or is it literally just just that?

Honestly, I knew you were gonna ask me this.

It's like I don't really know.

Yeah, I slacked Aaron because I thought that it came from him for some reason.

But I think it was at Laracon last year after day two we were all kind of partying the
night away and I feel like it came then but I just don't remember.

Yeah.

Well it that's you know what that's the best kind.

Is 'cause if you're Gen Z Abbey twenty years from now and nobody has the slightest clue
and you're like, Look, I'm I'm older than all you younglins who are calling me Gen Z

Abbey, it's gonna be great.

It's

Really spin through the masses.

I get like fully serious, like, hey Gen Z Abby, can you help me with this stuff?

I'm like, okay.

Yeah, sure.

So we we clearly need to make you like a a shirt or something like for Larry.

Okay, cool.

Uh I'm gonna literally write a note about that right now.

Um okay.

So while I write down my note about a Gen Z Abbey t shirt, let's talk about what got you
to the place you're in today.

And you can go as far back as you want.

and literally I mean that.

You can go back to middle school, high school, whatever, but like what is the journey that
got Gen Z Abbey from

what your original plans were in life from to start to decide what you want to do with
your time to now being a marketer.

And and not just a marketer, 'cause you're also an event manager and stuff like that.

Like what's the story of getting and we can land, you know, maybe right before you start
working at Laravel.

Yeah.

Well, we don't have to go back that far because I am quite young.

but yeah, basically college I would say.

I studied political science and I thought that I was gonna go to law school.

I was like studying for the LSAT, getting ready.

That was kind of my dream.

I did my last year of school uh in Washington DC.

We had like a internship program there.

So I was working for a nonprofit, like finishing up my classes, and it was just a bad time
to be in the nonprofit world.

This was like I graduated in December of 2024.

So all the nonprofits had just like lost all their funds.

It was kind of a nightmare.

So I was hired on at my internship to like keep working for them.

I was working at a restaurant, just like hanging out in DC.

It was really fun, but I was starting to get pretty nervous because I knew that I wanted
like a different job.

I didn't want to go straight into law school.

But it was it was a tough time, especially for like an entry level position.

So Yeah.

My sister is in tech, actually.

She was in the Vercel crew.

So it always been like kind of in my ear, like, if you ever want to get into tech, she
knew that I was job searching and so

She's like, could be a marketer.

And I was like, no, I I don't think that's me.

Like anyway, she reached out because Sam and Hank had kind of sent a message to old
colleagues about this sort of entry level marketing position doing events.

And she sent me the job description and I was like,

Ha ha.

That looks awesome.

After reading job descriptions at like these weird non-profit think tanks.

Anyway I was like, wait, that actually sounds amazing.

So yeah, I was like, I'm gonna reach out to Sam.

So I sent her an email and was like, hey, you know my sister, like I'm very interested in
this job.

So it was kind of all the stars aligned from there.

That's crazy.

So have you ever been the sort 'cause I know I know some people are like this is an event
person.

Everyone knows that like when this person throws your birthday party or throws a thing,
like they're gonna the bring you to the best stuff or whatever.

Have you been that person historically or like what's your relationship to events?

And I'm gonna ask that same question about marketing.

Yeah, I think I'm kind of in between, to be honest.

I'm I'm never like the full on like event girl.

I wasn't like playing parties when I was young.

But I think I have a social personality and like I'm organized and I'm like I can get
things done.

So I feel like it is a really good fit for me, more like a sort of corporate events.

Okay.

And then we want to talk about marketing.

A lot of people from outside the marketing world, this is somebody who's done a lot of
marketing, so I can talk trash about us, see m marketing as, you know, it's just you're

just trying to convince people to do things that they don't want, you know.

So there's it's it's hard to find people who aren't explicitly defining themselves as a
marketer who can be like, you know what, that's it, that's that's a role I want to step

into.

Do you have any any either pro or con, any positive or negative feelings about marketing
before stepping to marketing position?

Yeah, I think that I did have an idea in my head about it of like it felt kind of like
selling out, if you will.

right.

Because I don't know, I watched my sister do it and like be super successful and I'm like
so happy for her, proud of her.

But I was like, I need to be fulfilled by my job.

Like if I was in marketing, that wouldn't be fulfilling for me.

Like I need to do something to change the world, whatever, as we all think.

Um and yeah, that's totally changed.

I just feel like how you find meaning from your job

is up to you and like you can be fulfilled by anything as long as you're willing to like
find a way to let it fulfill you.

And especially that like community piece that I get in Laravel and that was part of my
title when I started and is still a big part of my day to day job like community.

So and that is just so fulfilling and like so sweet and amazing.

So

I love that.

I want to talk more about that in a second, but we're gonna first thank some of our
sponsors for the podcast.

All right, so thank you so much for our first sponsor, repeating sponsor, Honey Badger.

Move fast and fix things with Honey Badger's intelligent error tracking and application
monitoring for Laravel.

That's everything you need to keep production healthy and users happy.

So get your free developer account at honeybadger.io.

And then our second sponsor, it's also sponsored by Laravel, Abby's employer, and the
folks behind Laravel Cloud and Laracon US, which we'll talk about in a minute.

Laravel Cloud is the fastest way to deploy Laravel apps.

It also solves all sorts of common problems that keep web artisans from shipping.

And Laracon US is the premier in person event for all web artisans to come be with your
people, level up, and leave, ready to ship faster and better than ever.

Check these out at cloud.laravel.com and Laracon.us.

Okay.

So prior to starting Tighten,

I worked at a nonprofit as well.

So I worked in nonprofits for ten years.

That can't be right.

Quite a while.

And when I moved into the corporate world, I was worried about selling out.

And I was worried about, now all I'm gonna care about is getting a paycheck.

And, you know, and it was easier to justify it.

One thing you'll hear people talk about a lot, especially married men with children, is
they justify like not pursuing their previous dreams by saying, Because I'm doing this to

provide for my family, right?

Which really just means.

Not hold on, that's not true.

It sometimes that's actually the focus, but often it's just a way for us to justify not
having fully processed what it feels like to not follow that dream we originally had.

And one of the things that I really love that I was going to poke at, and you got to it
way before I did, is that you can work at a nonprofit and be just absolutely miserable,

not connected to your passion or your joy or your happiness, not actually be impacting
people's lives positively.

And you can work in the most corporate environment and you can.

be the the highlight of people's day and you can change entire people's worlds around
based on the the way you're using the power of that position that you're in.

And you named it, right?

I was just like, yes, that's exactly it.

Like, yeah, I I am in the corporate world and I employ people and I, you know, help create
public spaces where people are kinder to each other and I help make events happen.

So and that's exactly so I'm just like, man, you're way too young to have figured that out
already.

But whatever.

I love it for you and for the rest of us.

So that's really cool.

Yeah, it's very true.

It's very true.

I think we all have those stereotypes in our head.

Um but it's it's not true from my experience.

uh

Okay.

So you had mentioned that you reached out to Sam and kind of one of the things I always
ask people in the podcast is like, what was your d process of kind of moving to Laravel?

And a lot of people would be like, Well, I've known about Larivelle for twenty years and
you know, and been trying to get a job there.

and obviously it's not even twenty years old, but for you, it's sort of like you probably
hadn't even heard of Laravel, the organization, because you know about Vercel, right?

But you've probably heard about Laravel.

So first of all, like what was your introduction process either before or, you know,
during the job?

And what was kind of maybe the most surprising aspect of like learning?

Because you are now full team Laraball, right?

You you know the people, you know the community, you know the company, uh, but it is a lar
it's it's a big cultural space, right?

That it has a culture, it has a a community, whatever.

And so you go from like, I don't even know who these people are to I'm a part of helping
define community.

Like what was that process like for you?

Yeah, it it was interesting.

Definitely had never heard of Laravel.

I was extremely unfamiliar with the tech world.

Like I knew what Versell was, I guess, but I didn't know what they did or like the ins and
outs.

Yeah, so it was just I set up an interview with Sam and so as I was prepping for that I
was like doing a bunch of research on Laravel and I was like, Whoa.

Like

Yeah.

This like weird little corner of the world where people are just obsessed with this
framework and they are like throwing parties about it in every country in the world and

like that was definitely a shock just to like be researching and like on online about what
people thought about Laravel and the community and I was like, Oh, this is gonna be

This is gonna be This is gonna be fun.

Yeah.

I love that.

Yeah, so that's definitely where it started was just prepping for that interview.

And then since then, yeah, I mean that remains my favorite part about Laravel, just being
able to connect with this community who really is like so passionate, so niche, so kind,

like it's is very exciting.

I love that.

What was the role?

You mentioned your first role did have events in community.

So what were you doing when you first joined?

Yeah, basically from the day I joined my first like May, June, July was Laracon.

Yeah.

I mean that's why I was hired because they Sam was basically doing Laracon alone with Hank
a little bit and they needed help.

So it was like heads down on Laracon.

That of course taught me a lot about like the community and what needed to be done there.

We had sort of

recently launched before I joined the meetup program where we sort of sponsor meetups and
and help them get going and reimburse them and whatnot.

So yeah, I would I would say mostly Laracon and events, but then as Laracon wound down a
bit, it was meetups, finding meetups, talking to these meetup organizers, trying to like

structure the program a little bit more.

Yeah, yeah.

So it was all the various things that are kind of like relatively in person community.

Were there any things that you were working on at the time that were not in person, or is
it really kind of structured around that?

I think it was it was pretty event focused.

Like these meetups are in person, obviously.

I was doing a lot of travel.

Yeah, I think it was like really about the the in person.

Of course I was like still on the marketing team.

I was doing emails and socials and and things like that.

But yeah, the focus was definitely the in person events.

Okay.

And w I mentioned at the beginning, recently promoted, congratulations again.

When has the switch happened and what's your new role at this point?

Yeah.

So Sam, my boss, left a couple months ago now, which was very sad.

I was all of us.

Yes.

She was just like amazing.

I mean, this is my first like real job.

So to have someone like her as like my first boss was just you taught me so much and
anyway, I love her dearly.

Um but she left and we've kind of been building out the marketing team for a while.

I feel like we're

Finally at a place now where we have a real team.

Everybody has like a job.

So I was kind of she left.

We had just recently hired a lot of people.

So I was kind of trying to figure out I they didn't really know what to do with me.

They were like Okay.

oh I guess, you know, Sam and Abby were doing events.

Sam was doing a lot of other stuff too, but they were like, Abby will just take on all of
that.

And anyway.

Some other things as as we've hired like other roles, I feel like I've been able to
collaborate with them and start focusing a little bit more on like how events generate

pipeline and how I can kind of get into a little bit more of a marketing brain in that
sense rather than just like admin.

I was just like make it happen and make sure everybody survives and then it's over.

And now

That's a win.

Now we have a little more support to like make these worthwhile on the business side.

So I think that's been the shift.

It it was probably a month after Sam left, I got officially promoted and yeah.

Okay.

And for those unfamiliar, now I don't know what it looks like cost wise to run today's
scale of Laracon, and I'm not asking you to tell me, but I do know that in the early days

when it was Taylor and then Taylor and Ian, and then they would also have some folks help
like Jess in the early days, breaking even for an event like Laracon would be a big win.

You know, usually it's it's it's a money loser that they were running with because they
said this is worth doing for the the open source framework to have a community around it.

And certainly once Taylor started having paid tools like Forge and Envoyer, anything that
happened could be considered sort of marketing for that.

Any growth in the Laravel community, any growth in the Laravel framework meant more people
using Laravel, meant more people potentially using those products.

So it makes sense as kind of like anything that helps the Laravel community and framework
is helping the the organization.

So I imagine that a decent portion of it is uh just the general understanding that as
Laracon

across the world, as meetups across the world, benefit the community's growth and health
and visibility.

That means there's more people who are using Laravel, who are considering paying for
Laravel products.

but I also know that with PE comes the need to say, but we're also specifically driving
conversions to the things that matter, which is one of the reasons why you can have a paid

marketing team, right?

There's no paid marketing team in those early days because that just wasn't kind of where
the the money made sense.

So it's very interesting to me hearing about how and I just had, you know, Cynthia on
talking about how she's like, there's a pressure when you're doing marketing firm

marketing work in tech, in the valley, in, you know, P E and V C to really kind of like
force it to be a certain way.

And she's like, But I just realized that like I need to let Laravel be Laravel and find
these kind of connections in here.

As you have been learning to do marketing.

Learning to do event management and also learning the fact that we do marketing and events
differently than a lot of other places.

And if you were just to adopt what everybody else does, it wouldn't match, right?

Like if you went really marketing heavy like a lot of Silicon Valley places did at
a Laracon, it would turn everybody off.

How do you learn how to do your job when it's not what you have training in and it's not
like anybody else is doing it?

Like is it just do you have a mentor?

Do you have are you guys just figuring it out as you go?

Like

And I this is especially a question for you, just because you're just like, you know,
you're young in your career and you kind of got dropped in a little bit of like a well,

Sam's not here anymore.

So, you know, like how do you w yeah, where do you look to to to learn?

Yeah.

So big shout out to Hank.

I still have Hank helping me.

He's part-time, mostly just working on Laracon with me.

But I think he has a very deep understanding of the community.

And so he can kind of really be a voice of reason in like how we should run these things.

So definitely Hank is my mentor.

I also think

It's honestly a good thing that this is my first like event marketing experience because
it is so unique.

I think if I had been like planning corporate events somewhere else and then came here, it
would be a bit of a shock to be like, by the way, like we don't care about money on these

events.

Like this is for the community.

Cause like you were saying, like, I really am that top of funnel, like more people
creating Laravel apps.

Feeling supported by community and the rest follows, which is great.

I feel like I don't have a lot of pressure to like hit certain numbers or fit within
certain budget constraints.

It really feels like we are doing this because we know how important the community is.

And that's just been something to balance as we have built out the marketing team.

I think yeah, we always kind of have like a we need to make money and and sell things and
also

We need to make sure that the Laravel vibe stays the Laravel vibe.

So I feel like with the team that we have now, it is a good balance.

There's always like somebody on both sides.

And I think I just I understand the community well now.

And it feels like I can make sure that we always have that balance and and still care
about the fact that we're a business and and I get a paycheck too.

Yes, I love that.

I want you to get the paycheck.

I want the business to be successful.

Okay, so more on that in second, but one more spot to thank some sponsors for their
support of this podcast.

And I'm also so grateful to the wonderful human beings, especially Michael at Laracon
Australia, Laracon AU for sponsoring.

Laracon AU returns November fourth to sixth in Brisbane.

Oh freaking beautiful city with deeper learning, practical insights, and ideas that will
stretch how you think about building with Laravel.

Get your tickets now at Laracon.au.

uh

And I will be speaking at Laracon Australia this year as well.

And I'm actually super excited about the talk I'm going to be giving there.

Also the one I'm giving at US.

So make sure you check that out and Laracon US.

Okay.

So one of the things I've been curious about for a while is how much various folks who are
not programmers within the Laravel organization can feel comfortable stepping in spaces

with programmers, how good of a job we are or are not doing and making you all feel
welcome.

And how much you are or are not using, you know, like

Laravel and Claude or putting stuff on v you know, Laravel Cloud and testing things out.

Like so I'm I'm very curious.

Like what is your experience as a non programmer in a primarily programmer centric space?

Do you feel comfortable?

Is there parts where you're like, Yeah, I just have to tune out where they're talking
about this stuff in Slack or like what's it like?

Yeah.

I think especially at the beginning, like I didn't know what I didn't know and I felt very
comfortable being like, I know nothing about this and it's not my job to know anything

about this, so that's totally fine.

And I mean everybody's so kind.

Nobody expects me to know anything about this.

Yeah.

But I've been like surprisingly interested in it and Cynthia, I know you talked to her,
has definitely been

She's kind of made it known that it's important to like understand these things and it's
important to like deploy something on cloud and to, yeah, like create a Laravel

application, know what it looks like.

Of course, we have to know the thing that we're marketing.

Yeah.

She gave me some really great advice when I first started, which was just like ask, please
ask the dumbest questions.

And I think she is like really good at this.

Like she'll be in Slack, just like, what is that?

And I think that's like so important and has really been inspiring just to have her as a
leader and be like, Yeah, you don't need to know what this is.

That's not your job.

Like, you should ask because it will make you better at your job if you ask and you figure
it out.

And yeah, so I've since it's been pretty recent that I've kind of really gotten into like
creating Laravel applications and like deploying things because

of AI, it's so much easier now, whereas at the beginning I feel like it wasn't as
accessible to me.

But now it feels very accessible.

And yeah, it's very exciting just to be like, I've never deployed anything anywhere else,
but yeah, this was like really easy on Laravel Cloud.

Yeah.

You can actually understand kind of what we're talking about and the value it's offering.

That's really cool.

And I mean I I I very much have a dream that cloud is one of the tools we can use to make
Laravel accessible to a broader swath of people because a lot of the reasons why we

haven't been able to break in uh, you know, to a lot of Silicon Valley and other places is
because the um the i newcomers are always taught the same steck deck and it's not Laravel.

So seeing people who are not just not a Laravel developer, but aren't aren't a developer at
all by training, say, I can build and deploy an application.

I'm like, yes, yes, that's what we want.

So I love hearing that.

Preaching in the choir.

Yep.

Okay.

So I know we don't even know where the Gen Z name came from, but I am very curious.

A lot of the leading voices in the Laravel community are elder millennials.

It's just I think it just has to do with what with Taylor's age and the age of all of us,
you know, older people when Laravel first came out and where people are in their career to

be like a teacher, stuff like that.

So are there any ways and you can just choose to not answer this if you don't want to get
in trouble, but any ways where you are just sort of like, Wow, this culture is so

millennial?

Are you ever like, you know what, here's an influence I need to make on the marketing or
on the events to just try and shift it to have a little bit of a younger vibe?

Or is here is that not a is that another thing?

Well, I do think we do have a quite a millennial culture, which is which is funny.

Um like everyone it feels like everyone out Laravel is like just having babies and they're
all like in that exact age range.

But yeah, I don't know.

I think that is also our user base.

So it it doesn't make a lot of sense to be like, We need to do this like cool Gen Z
marketing campaign thing oh

Just not really our audience.

I wish it was.

I do think it's important that we are like, you know, investing in some younger people.

We're trying to get like students to come to Laracon, things like that.

Um but I'm used to it.

I'm the youngest in my family.

So all my siblings pretty much are like millennials.

And I I fit in.

It's okay.

Okay.

So you're not pushing for like the the latest TikTok dance trend on the official Laravel TikTok.

That's also not me either.

I'm just

Yeah, it doesn't seem like you at all.

I'm Gen Z, but I'm not like that Gen Z.

Yeah, totally.

Okay.

All right.

So as you're looking forward to the next, let's just say six months, I want to talk about
what's the next six months like right because I know it involves Laracon US.

I don't know how involved you are in the other Laracons.

So there's a Laracon AU in there and I don't know when Europe is, but I think Europe has
passed.

But yeah, there's some conferences.

I know you've just got back from Japan as well, right?

So like what does the next six months look like for you?

And let's start with US, I guess, because I assume that's your next big thing on your
plate.

Yeah, that's definitely the next big thing.

We do have Laravel Live UK.

Yeah, we have outside organizers who run a lot of those ones.

So we're going more as sponsors.

We're a little bit involved, but it's nothing crazy.

Yeah.

So yeah, my my nine to five right now is Laracon and just prepping for that.

Um it's gonna be a really fun year.

I think we've really like leaned into

community stuff this year.

That's just that's why people come.

That's why they want to be there is because they get to hang out and we have an amazing
speaker lineup.

The venue's gonna be amazing.

Like all of those things are there, but we've really leaned into those community events.

So I'm planning a dodgeball tournament.

I'm planning LaraProm, if you've heard

Yeah.

Let's talk about these 'cause I'm l let's assume a listener has not they don't even know
where it is this year.

So tell us, where's it gonna be?

When's it gonna be?

What's the venue?

And then tell me about all these social events.

Yes.

So we are in Boston, Massachusetts this year, July twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth.

The twenty-seventh, the fun begins.

That's like our unofficial day zero.

So we always I don't know about always, but for the past few years they've done like a
sporting event on day zero, right?

Which is hilarious for a bunch of nerds, but I love it.

They did basketball and then last year we did golf, which was certainly something.

And this year we're doing dodgeball, which was Sam's idea, and then she left.

So rude.

But yeah, this one's gonna be fun.

I think the feedback we got from golf was just that like you're kind of isolated in these
groups and you can't really like hang out with anyone else.

So this year we've like totally opened it up as well to the entire community instead of
just like speakers and sponsors like we did with golf.

So anyone can play, anyone can come.

We have this like it's it's like a high school gym.

It fits like five hundred people and yeah, we're gonna live stream it.

Well honestly we haven't figured out like the exact bracket or what it's gonna look like,
but it's gonna be a blast.

so if somebody does not want to have balls thrown at their face, they can still register
to show up and just watch.

Of course.

Yeah.

On the on the invite it's like, do you wanna watch or do you wanna play?

Okay.

So you're doing dodgeball first, which is amazing.

And so I I'm assuming from you saying bracket that people will be split up into teams and
then there'll be some kind of bracket where the winning teams Yeah, okay.

Fantastic.

Okay.

And then what's next after dodgeball?

Yeah, so then we had found this high school gym.

It's like two minutes from the venue.

And so we were like, we could also use this for the most like technical pre-party, which
we've started doing last year.

It was a big success.

We did one in Europe.

Um so yeah, it just kind of made sense to like keep it in this venue.

Um, it worked really well, and then we were like,

High school gym, like, come on you guys, this is really giving prom vibes.

I actually think Hank will be mad if I don't say that it was his idea, LaraProm
specifically.

Love that.

Yeah.

Yeah, so we're it just like kind of fits the Laravel vibe to be honest.

We're like we could go to some fancy rooftop in like downtown Boston, but that's not
really us.

We're kind of like hang at the high school gym and like crack some beers open type of
community.

So that's what we're doing.

It'll be fun.

We want to do like a photo booth.

Yeah, it'll just be good fun.

Yes.

And for those who don't know, you don't have to dress up.

But if you do dress up, you're gonna get a little gift.

And there are at least some of us who are going all the way.

So you'll see at least some people there in tuxedos and prom dresses, and at least one
group is bringing a limo.

So it doesn't mean you have to.

You could just show up in t shirt and shorts and you'll be welcome.

But some people are going all out.

So

My God, are you bringing a limo?

I'm still trying to decide.

Uh Chris Morell is definitely drink bring a limo.

And I I was on the verge of it.

And then I heard he was doing it and I was like, well, I kinda have to at this point,
right?

So Yeah, I mean Yeah.

Okay, so LaraProm.

So for those not familiar, Mostly Technical is a wonderful buddy cop podcast.

Uh somebody just called them the bas basically the old married couple podcast, but it's
basically it's Ian Landsman and Aaron Francis.

Uh, both pillars in the Laravel community.

And they have recently started throwing a party the the night before that is technically a
mostly technical party, but it ends up, especially now that you guys are working together,

and it ends up being basically like a Laravel pre-party, right?

It's just like, hey, if you if you are a part of if you're on a Laracon, then come come
hang out.

so that's very fun, and I love that you guys are helping them out with that.

And then we get to Laracon itself.

And I think the first time we met in person, you were sitting in under a tent frantically.

handling name tags and all that kind of stuff.

So I imagine you're gonna be doing a lot of the administrative stuff at the conference
this year as well, right?

Yeah, definitely.

We we're lucky to have like a big team.

This is also our off site, so yeah.

Everyone on the Laravel team has many jobs and we are all put to work.

But yeah, it it's a bit chaotic day of, especially day one.

Just like making sure everything is right, running around everywhere.

Yeah, I I feel good this year though.

I think having one under my belt is like making a world of a difference.

I just feel like

Much more comfortable going into it.

Good.

Okay.

So if I'm not sure if I'm going and I'm trying to be convinced into going, tell me about
the venue and the the kind of the area of town it is.

Yeah.

I do wanna mention one more thing on day zero, which is a Larabelles meetup.

Larabels is for people in the Laravel or PHP community at large who are underrepresented
due to their gender.

And they're doing a little meetup.

It's between Dodgeball and the mostly technical pre party.

So I think they're gonna meet at a nearby happy hour bar sort of situation.

But

If that applies to you, you should definitely go to that.

It's a very, very wonderful, welcoming little crew.

Yes.

I should know where it is because we're sponsoring it and I helped them choose, but I
tried to say I'm sponsoring and now I'm gonna let the non white dudes at be a part of that

conversation.

So I put my stamp of approval and unfortunately I don't have the name in front of me, but
I'm sure that with people go to the Laracon website they'll be able to find and register

for each of those and get details about them, right?

Yeah, it's on there and they're actually all very close by.

We have like hotel recommendations and then the venue.

Everything is like pretty close.

Awesome.

All right.

Tell me about the venue.

Yeah, we're at SoWa Power Station, which is a big, just kind of open industrial building.

It's kind of like a blank canvas.

It's really pretty.

It's little brick, wood.

It feels very large, honestly.

So we're building out a little stage.

We're gonna shove 1300 chairs in there.

And yeah, it's gonna be really nice.

I'm excited.

I'm excited for the venue.

There's a nice like

sort of upstairs space, have some like mezzanine areas.

And then the sponsor hall is going to be outside in in a tent.

Okay.

A nice tent.

Not like a uh it's not like what you're thinking.

It's gonna be a nice tent.

We have AC, which is essential.

Yeah, there's gonna be a lot of like fun booths.

I know you guys are gonna do something fun.

Laravel will have a few different booths.

We're gonna have some

Fun little activities I would like to tease.

There may be a little claw machine.

Yeah.

Hate has some crazy ideas.

Yeah.

Cool.

Normally I'm not super intimately familiar with a uh venue before we go, but I'm working
on a secret project that will be a part of my talk.

You know, Ebi and everyone else does not, that has required me to scour over every single
picture I can find of this venue on the internet.

If if there's a picture of the Soba Power Station on the internet, I have looked at it
from s you know, tried it I'm also bas I' basically piecing together like a 3D

representation of the the thing in my mind.

So that I can I'm like, what that picture has that window in it.

So it must be in the mezzanine, but that picture has that.

So it might be that's the kitchen.

And there's also just one little stretch of the building that there are no pictures of in
the entire internet.

And it's the kitchen and bathrooms area.

I have no freaking clue.

So when we get there on Monday, I have to go snap a couple pictures and then update my
secret project.

So anyway, because of that, not only am I more familiar with something that I wouldn't
that I've never been to, but I'm often I'm more familiar than I often would be a

Going to a place because you don't look at every single angle of every I've looked at
every single freaking angle.

I'm sitting here in Google Maps, whatever.

It is a beautiful venue.

If you go look up the Sova Power Station, you'll see all sorts of fun things they've done
there.

Like people do weddings there, they do concerts there, they do all and and you you're
right.

It's really they all look so distinct from each other.

Like it literally is just like here's beautiful industrial brick walls and windows, and
then what's your vision?

So I'm very excited to see what your vision is.

Y'all's vision is.

Also, I think I have some photos of the missing spaces if if you want me to

yes, please.

I would love that.

Okay, we'll talk offline.

Amazing.

Okay.

So that's the venue.

So I'm presuming that the conference itself is relatively similar.

We've got wonderful single track conference with great speakers, Taylor given some kind of
a keynote, um, announcements, and then some of the sponsor given little five minute slots

here and there, uh on site lunch, uh people going out for dinner, and then I is it after
party on day one?

Yep.

After party on day one.

Um, I think it will be pretty similar to last year, kind of like an open air big venue.

Um yeah.

Day two talks, yeah, everything's single track.

We are we haven't announced all of our speakers yet.

It it's been a little bit of a process this year.

We're just like really trying to get it perfect.

So there's actually still some decisions to be made.

but

Go check out the speakers posted on our website.

We update them on Twitter.

It it is really gonna be a great year.

I love that.

Okay, so we have reached the end of things that I wanted to bother you about.

But before we actually wrap, is there anything that you are nerding out about?

Like, cause I part of this is about, yeah, what's your relationship with the Larimo world?

But part of this is I just want people to know who people are.

So you have this fun hook that you're Gen Z Abbey.

But a lot of people are like, all I know about Gen Z Abby is whatever Ian Landsman has said
about her and mostly technical.

So I'm is there anything about you that

we might not know.

Is it do you have a secret passion for crochet or are you a gardener or, you know, are you
obsessed with a particular K-pop band or thing like there's anything about you that we

don't know that you just like deeply love?

I've recently moved, which has been a big deal because I've been because of this job, I
decided to forego my lease about a year ago and just full time travel.

So I've been full time digital nomad for like almost a year, which has been amazing.

But I've been going through the process of getting a visa in Italy for the last like

six months.

It was like the hardest thing in the whole world.

It was so hard to get this visa.

Yeah.

And I but I did it and I just moved to Milan.

So I think I'm geeking out about like Italy and the culture.

I'm like learning Italian obviously.

I'm in I'm in some classes for that.

And just like yeah, really in kind of a a cultural moment.

Just like exploring the city and like the beautiful architecture and the history and

That's kind of what I'm excited to wake up and just like explore.

I mean, that sounds like something very exciting to wake up and explore.

So I get that.

that's so cool.

I have partial Italian heritage.

And uh the director of engineering at Tighten, Keith is more Italian heritage than I do.

And he got his Italian citizenship based on it.

His whole family has moved to Italy for a year at a time, twice now.

They're there all the time.

And he's just really kind of like given me a lot of motivation to want to connect to that.

He unfortunately let me know that they recently had a um a change in their not he let me
know, but somebody else told me.

And he verified that they had recently had a change in political leadership that has made
it significantly harder for Americans to get either citizenship or visas.

So I can imagine that you unfortunately got the hard end of the stick on that one.

So I'm so glad you were able to actually make it happen.

And now you've got me even more inspired to actually go visit.

So

Yeah, no, you should.

I I'm jealous.

I don't have like any heritage.

I know that does make it a lot easier to like get a visa.

But it's possible.

Follow your dreams.

Yeah, I love it.

That's awesome.

All right.

Is there anything else that you hoped we'd get a chance to cover today that we didn't get
to?

I don't think so.

This has been very fun to chat to

had a great time.

I told you.

I told you it'd be fine.

We had a good time.

If people love Gen Z Abbey, want to follow her more, other than just saying hi to her at
conference.

What's the best way for somebody to keep in touch you?

I'm on Twitter X the Everything App Twitter.

You're only allowed to call it X if you say the everything up afterwards, so I'll accept
it.

Yes.

At Abby Gilson28.

Should actually double check that.

Yeah, you can email me, abby at Laravel.com.

I'm pretty good with email.

Yeah.

Come say hi.

I'm at basically every Laravel event that happens.

So

I love it.

Yeah.

If you come to any in person thing.

do you are you involved I should ask you this before.

Are you involved in the road shows at all?

Okay.

So am I right that there's one coming up soon in Texas?

There's one in Dallas on June eleventh, so

I think this will probably have released or I think that will happen by the time this
releases.

So I think I think it's too late for this to tell people to go.

But I went to the the inaugural uh Atlanta uh road show in Atlanta.

We had a great time, and I know that they're each new one, they're getting even more kind
of new ideas about it.

So if one comes to your city, definitely come.

It's a it's a it's a little hang.

It's almost like a mini Lyricon in some ways.

It's you absolutely should should go check it out.

Yeah, those have been very fun.

We're we're planning all over.

We're skipping July because we have FlareCon, but yeah.

We'll be back.

There's also a meetup near you somewhere.

Yeah.

You can s check out Lareville dot com slash community.

I put all the meetups on there, so there's always something.

Amazing.

Well, Abby, all of us who go to any physical events benefit from your involvement in the
community.

So thank you so much for bringing your unique perspective, Flair, and just hard work.

As somebody who is a speaker and a sponsor and just someone who's trying to make the
community a better place, I constantly am interacting with Abby and she's constantly an

advocate and a support.

The number of messages she has received from me and Slack on tens of different issues is
is a little bit embarrassing.

So just know we are so so so grateful for your work and also for you coming to hang out
today.

Thank you, Matt, you're the best.

You are the best.

All right.

For the rest of you, we will see you all next time.