I've been fortunate enough to have been involved with the Heartland Developers Conference since its inception many years ago.  What started off as a small event in Des Moines had grown to one of the nation's premier regional .NET Developers Conferences.  Each year, 500+ developers from the nation's heartland (where else given the name right?) descended on the HDC and each year they have come away impressed and very satisfied.  But even with great content and speakers, people from further away still had trouble getting to HDC.  So what has HDC done - they have decided to go to an additional city in 2008.  So not only will Omaha get an HDC, but HDC will be venturing north and stopping in Minneapolis.  Check out the website and get it on your calendar.