The first official Rails conference has opened its doors to registrations and is tempting with a wide variety of auxiliary announcements. While all the sessions haven’t been announced yet, the keynotes are final. We got Martin Fowler, Paul Graham, Dave Thomas, and yours truly all lined up to deliver anchors of blast.

There’s a limited number of seats, so just like RubyConf this year, we expect RailsConf to sell out well in advance. That’s one great reason to register now, another is the $400 super early-bird price that only lasts until the end of the month. After that it’s $475 for a while and finally $550 once we get past April 18th. I doubt we’ll have any seats left to sell at $550, though.

As if you needed additional reason, the first 100 lucky people who sign up and donate at least $40 to charity will get free access to a pre-conference day called The Rails Guidebook where Dave Thomas and Mike Clark will teach you Ruby on Rails. So if you’re really quick, that’s a fantastic opportunity to get even more value out of your trip to Chicago in June.

Yes, in case you forgot, RailsConf 2006 is going down in Chicago from June 22nd through 26th at the Wyndham O’Hare hotel. Three days of happy programming for people who love beautiful code. I expect to see you there!