First of all, I want to congratulate all the volunteers that made this happen. It was a very well organized event and ran smoothly. I had a great time. It was nice meeting people that I couldn’t have met any other way.
As A Vendor…
The Good:
Ryan Adams did a very good job keeping things coordinated up to the event. Making sure that everything we were entitled to we got. Always very responsive to emails and questions.
The day of I always had Ryan or one of the volunteers stop by between sessions and check that everything was good. I have always had a good experience with PASS events, but I’ve never had so many people checking on us before!
Needs Improvement:
Table placements. I just didn’t understand the flow and layout of the event until I saw the venue first hand. I would have picked a different table. I don’t think it hurt us, we had crazy foot traffic and lots of conversations.
It did bottleneck up sometimes around the vendor tables as sessions let out but I think over all the placement was OK. There isn’t much room to work with and I don’t know if I would have done much better in their shoes!
Overall:
As a vendor I was very happy with the event and the amount of time I got to spend talking to folks about Nitrosphere and what we do. As a new company getting out and meeting people is very important.
Only having one or two big conferences a year is difficult and costs 5 to 10 times the amount of money that a SQL Saturday does.
As a Speaker…
The Good:
Again, well coordinated no scheduling issues or anything like that. I found the different tracks layer out well. The meet and greet the night before was nice.
Speaker room was big enough.Internet access seemed fine to me.
Again, I was checked on by the staff over and over to make sure things were OK.
We also had a handler feeding us time to help keep us on track.
Needs Improvement:
Recording sessions was spotty. It was a last minute thing and most of us could have used a little hand holding getting it right.
Overall:
As a speaker I was happy again with the organization and attention to detail.
As an attendee…
The Good:
Lots of tracks an sessions for everyone. I enjoyed seeing so many local and new speakers making the break.
Plenty of interaction between people and speakers.
The food was great, I NEVER get the chicken salad, I ate two for lunch :). Oh the ice cream…. so evil.
Needs Improvement:
Bathroom Queue Length’s were a little long but did clear up.
Finding the stairs to the second floor was fun.
Overall:
Yet again, no real complaints. Plenty of seating solid flow and awesome choices. I still can’t believe this was a free day of training!
I will be making room for other SQL Saturdays going forward.
