The biggest issue most freelancers face is the absence of communication with other human beings. It’s rather hard to work long hours alone, and it only gets better when you find someone like you who’d be pleased to communicate a bit. Conferences are rather helpful when you are having communication issues and even if they are not daily meetings, conferences help you with other creative minds that you might have lots of things in common.

Besides the atmosphere and the communication you can get at conferences, they are also very helpful because it’s a rule of thumb for such events to hold many speakers that would you give you more insights or tips and share stories about the industry they are working in. There are small things that shouldn’t be taken as pros for attending conferences but are still nice, it’s the contests which are organized and the free stuff which is given away by various companies in order to promote their products. In this article we have reviewed a bunch of conferences that you would like to attend in 2013.

Web Design & Development Conferences to Attend in 2013

An Event Apart

An Event Apart is an intensely educational two-day learning session for developers and designers of all skill levels. If you care about code, content, usability and design then this conference is what you have been waiting for. The conference was founded by web visionaries Eric Meyer and Jeffrey Zeldman, who are dedicated to the proposition that the creators of great web experiences deserve a great learning experience.

Location & Date: There will be 6 “An Event Apart” conferences organized in 2013, in 6 cities across the United States. Check their website for dates and cities.

Who Should Attend: This conference shall be attended by people who make websites and are specialized in development and design.

Price: Pricing varies from conference to conference depending on the city it is organized in and the conference pass. Starting at $499.

FITCA

FITCA which can be defined as: “Future, Innovation, Technology & Creativity” is another conference dedicated to the technology and design community. FITC produces design and technology events worldwide which inspire, educate and challenge attendees. Since 2002, FITC has brought together like-minded professionals and students in Toronto, Amsterdam, Tokyo, San Francisco, Chicago, Seoul, New York, Los Angeles and many other cities.

Location & Date: Various dates (depending on location), in 2013 events will take place from February 17 to March 21.

Who Should Attend: This conference will cover a wide range of topics that are mainly related to web, design, graphics and technology.

Price: Varies, starts at: CA$59.00

SXSW

The SXSW or The South by Southwest conference is a festival for musicians, independent film makers and creative heads that want to meet up and listen to experienced speakers. SXSW’s schedule also includes several mobile-related speeches and talks, hence proven that mobile-related topics are getting more and more popular.

Location & Date: March 8-17 2013, Austin TX.

Who Should Attend: Anyone who is interesting in music, film, interactive and related topics and lives around the Austin area.

Price: Depends on type of ticket, the platinum (access all events) ticket costing $1595.

Adobe Max

Adobe Max is a design-related conference that aims to collect world’s creative minds and have them collide. The Max conference is all about creativity and expressiveness. People that attend the conference are mainly developers, designers, strategists, video professionals and pohotographers that come to Adobe Max to exchange ideas, impress each other with amazing ideas and get inspiration from each other. There are various perks which make attending the Max conference even better, and you can read them on Adobe’s website.

Location & Date: 4-8 May 2013, Los Angeles, CA.

Who Should Attend: Any creative, beginners and advanced, who would like to meet-up with people who are also sharing the same interests.

Price: Depending on the type of ticket, pricing starts at $1295 for an early bird ticket up to $1695 for an On-site pricing ticket.

Port 80

Port 80 is a conference for people who build or design websites, who are directly involved with the building/designing of them or people who are simply interested in them. There are 3 quarterly and one main even which is held in May in Newport, South Wales.

This year there will be 8 announced speakers at the main event, most of them being local speakers. The Port80 appears to be a great conference for those living in the south of England but doesn’t seem like it’s worth travelling the globe for it – mainly because it is oriented on not-so-big audiences.

Location & Date: As said there are 3 quarterly conferences and a main one, the latter being held on May 10, 2013 in Newport, South Wales.

Who Should Attend: This event may arouse interest among anyone who’s building websites for a living or for fun.

Price: $110 for one ticket (main event)

Future of Web Design

Future of Web Design is a world class conference that aims to bring top speakers who will discuss the hottest topics in details. FWD is a popular conference that is organized in 2 cities, one in US and another one in the United Kingdom. The 7th annual FWD conference aims to cover hot web design topics and technologies, and bring an amazing, unbeatable atmosphere.

Location & Date:Las Vegas (US) / London (UK) on May 13–15, 2013.

Who Should Attend: Anyone who considers himself related to web industry, design or development. This 4-day tech conference will be full of inspiration, education and networking with other creative folks.

Price: Pricing varies for event location and type of ticket (early bird/full price) but pricing starts at $895.

Conferences You Already Missed in 2013

Mobile Trends Conference (Already Finished)

Mobile Trends Conference is a 2-day workshop Polish conference that takes place in Krakow and aims to discuss the hot and important topics related to mobile industry. All speakers are polish therefore all speeches will be in polish so you might not be that interested to attend the conference if you are not a local, otherwise it’s a good conference to attend because it was divided in 2 parts: a business day and a workshop (development) day.

Location & Date: Krakow, Poland on February 21-22, 2013

Who Should Attend: Developers who know polish and are interested in mobile trends and hot topics.

Price: $95 / Day

jQuery Europe 2013-02-07 (Already Finished)

jQuery Europe is a dedicated event to the jQuery javascript library. This event will take place in the historic Vienna and expects hundreds/thousands of participants, to be considered a worldwide event. Official jQuery Events have always been considered professional workshop conferences for developers and programmers or people who love to know how the web/apps are built.

Location & Date: 22-23 Feburary 2013, Vienna (Austria)

Who Should Attend: Developers who would like to attend a top-conference with best speakers and an amazing atmosphere.

Price: The team behind the conference have worked a lot to get a lot of awesome deals and discounts for you, including plan fares and 5 star hotels. The conference ticket costs $600 (last-minute ticket).

Design Indaba (Already Finished)

Design Indaba is a design conference that takes place in Cape Town. Since 1995 the Indaba Conference has invited the world’s top creative minds to share their opinions with the masses. There are several reasons why you would like to attend the Indaba Conference, some of them being:

• Over 30 speakers from South Africa and other countries will meet under one roof.
• Only masters of their industries will speak at the conference.
• 20% of their audience come from abroad.

Location & Date: 27 February – 3 March (Cape Town).

Who should attend the conference: This conference focuses on creative people and is not limited to web designers and actually invites anyone who is related in any way to design and creativity.

Price: Pricing varies depending on type of ticket, full-pass conference ticket costs $815.