Not sure if I'm going this year, but I've been the last 3 years. The agenda is online http://www.ukoug.org.uk/ The venue is The Birmingham ICC (don't confuse this with the NEC) http://www.theicc.co.uk/ The most convenient hotel is the Hyatt http://birmingham.regency.hyatt.com/hyatt/hotels/index.jsp This has a covered walkway between the hotel and the ICC, handy in the UK in December :-) Last year the UKOUG had arranged free WiFi in the conference center for delegates. Lots of well known (technical) people from the oracle world attend, I think there'll be quite a few from this list who'll be going. The Oak table will probably have good representation. Not sure how to describe how "big" it is as it's the only user group conference I've ever been to, hundreds of delegates 80+ companies in the exhibition, Look at the agenda to see how relevant it is. It includes Oracle Apps (inc Siebel, JDEwards etc.) but there are plenty of technical DBA type talks. I went to the Oracle Open world conference in London a few years ago (2004 I think), which I seem to remember was much bigger than the UKOUG conference, but there's plenty going on, I'd certainly recommend it, especially if your employer is paying. Neil -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l