By any standards the first Joint International Congress of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (of North America) and the Association of European Planning Schools was a unique and extraordinary event. This claim might be regarded as a typical piece of promotional hyperbole, coming as it does from a member of the host institution's organising committee. But the facts speak for themselves: 700 delegates, half of them from North America with the remainder split more or less equally between Britain and the rest of Europe, converged on Oxford making it the largest ever gathering of planning educators anywhere. Just under 400 papers were presented, mainly in 16 parallel 'tracks', each with American and European co-chairs. Conference sessions were balanced by a full complementary programme of study visits, social events, receptions etc.