Set up and and ready to go. Wayne Snyder is going to open the ceremonies and the key note will be from Bob Muglia and Ted Kummert of Microsoft. There are almost 3000 registrants here this year. They’re in from 46 different countries. It’s really an amazing collection of people. Between twitter, the blogs, the people, the show… it’s not good for anyone’s ADD.

Cool intro with the quick history of the previous locations of the PASS Summit. Wayne’s talking about newsgroups as the source of information “back in the day” of 1999 and SQL Server 7.o. Wayne’s showing the growth over the last three years. 1528 in 2007, 2445 in 2008 and 2200 this year. That’s pretty amazing since most conferences are running 50% down this year, PASS is only down 9%.  That’s great! To the 40 some-odd percent of new people, Wayne asked, “Where the heck have you been for 10 years.” 98 MVP’s at the conference this year. Wow! Again. 400 Microsoft employees are at teh summit. They’re a healthy percentage of the people in the room. That’s pretty wild.

Wayne’s showing the status of PASS as an organization. We’ve got chapters all over the world, up to 200 different chapters (please come see us at the Southern New England SQL Server Users Group). Ah, up to the death of the sigs and the birth of the Virtual Chapters. It’s funny how that name change has actually made a difference in the same things that were being done before. Wayne’s going on about the 24 hours of PASS now. It’s a VERY successful event. They’re doing it again next year. I hope I can take part again. 50,000 registries from 70 countries.

WOO HOO! SQL Server Standard is announced. First complaint. He should have spent more time on it. But maybe that’s just me.

Lots of sponsors, Dell, EMC, Microsoft, nuts, he moved the slide, there were more. They are EXTREMELY important to this event. At the least, you should go and talk to them.

Steve Jones is quick. That’s all I can say. He’s quick.