I am interested in hearing which conferences you have attended that you feel covers the right material for a person who designs and develops websites?
just in case you need to know what i design/develop in: html/css, php, mysql.
I work in higher ed and administration is more in tune w/ sending their employees to higher ed conferences, so I want to get a good mix of conferences that I could research and present to my higher ups to possibly attend. - Thanks.
I have attended the DevConnections conference series twice before and am going again this year. I have found the content helpful in years past.
I would take in one of Gerry McGovern's Masterclasses (he's always on the road, you can catch him somewhere). It is non-technical but gives great insight into building great web sites from a content perspective.
It covers important topics like being customer-centric rather than organization-centric, how putting more content isn't always better and how a task-oriented design is better than a content-oriented one for most types of web sites.
It also show you how to get real data to back up design decisions. It will give you real ammunition to take to your bosses.
I attended the Future of Web Apps in Miami earlier this year and to be honest - while I had a lot of fun, I didn't learn very much. One of the workshops I walked straight out of because it was pretty much another web company pumping their product.
For PHP specific conferences: I went to ZendCon 08 this year and had a freaking blast. Got to meet all the influential badasses in the PHP world. The sessions were great and informative and the connections you can build are intense.
Beyond that I've heard good things about php|tek.
Try and find any local BarCamp events going on. Those are great places to connect with web types and they are free!
And finally I've heard people rave about OSCON which is put on by O'Reilly.
You can look at WebExpo Prague. Ryan Singer from 37signals etc. A lot of stuff.
For the listo of conferences see the new website http://lanyrd.com/ filled by people. It looks as an ultimate list for geek conferences now.