Hi Donald
I actually liked the first one with the "O" I think it added interest. ad2
I also liked that there was more info in the ad it had more body, and then the thank-you it gave a little more
of an over all story. It also gave a little bit of thought to the sponsors of what their sponsorship achieved.
My suggestion for that would have been to tone down the Red swirl and make
it a 50% opacity, and try and limited the text to one paragraph.
My 2c on the chosen advert.
1) Perhaps down tone the red swirl by reducing the opacity. or
2) Make Heidelberg Germany and the web details Black instead of Red, then the conf and the swirl will balance out.
3) If you can change the spacing between the sentences and make it less so it is more compact then that would make a big difference, as well as the DC16 sentence.
Nice layout!
Regards
Tammy