This is a perennial question, how to choose which events to attend, as a delegate, speaker, or exhibitor. This is a topic that I am very interested in at the moment as I am helping organises a one day conference in London, later in the year. And, the flip side of which conferences should I attend is how to design a conference that meets real needs.
Robert Scoble’s blog, Scobleizer, has a really interesting post on this topic. Scoble advocate Upcoming, which in term he describes as being an example of crowdsourcing. You can add events, you can see which events your friends are going to be attending, and you can search for events.
I had a quick look at Nottingham and it had a good range of local social, musical, cultural events. Upcoming can also work in conjunction with FaceBook. I think I will give it a try, and if it is great I will blog some more.