New user question

Hi,
I am a php programmer that recently got turned onto Ruby by my brother-in-law. I was wanting to learn more about it, and found out that there is a conference coming up in my hometown of Columbus, Ohio. Before I spend $500 for a ticket I was wanting to get the opinion of someone who maybe heard of any of these speakers: Bruce Tate, Stuart Halloway, Justin Gehtland, and Neal Ford. Do you think it would be worth the money to listen to these guys? The website for the conference (URL address blocked: See forum rules) doesn’t really give a lot of detail on what they are going to be teaching so I just don’t know if I should spend the money. The conference runs from February 9-11 so a quick response would be greatly appreciate.

Thanks for your time,
Todd Sampson