Why Attending a Monday Pre-con Will Be Awesome
PASS Summit 2012 Speaker
The SQL PASS Summit 2012 is coming up in a few months. It’s time to make your plans to attend. One of the things that many of you may be considering is attending a pre-con. There are two days of pre-cons, and it would undoubtedly be truly awesome to get to attend both days of pre-cons. However, many of you may only be able to get budget for a single day of pre-cons. If you are attending only 1 day of pre-cons, the natural tendency is to attend on Tuesday since it is the day before the Summit begins.
I want to share with you five reasons why you may want to go against that tendency and choose a pre-con on Monday instead. Here are the top 5 reason to attend a Monday pre-con if you are only attending 1 day of pre-cons:
5. Early Arrival
If you are attending pre-cons on Monday, that means you travel and arrive in Seattle a day or two earlier than many of your fellow Summit attendees. That means your hotel isn’t full up yet. You can request to be moved to a particular room (city view, water view, top floor, close to the elevator, etc.) and you will probably get it. You can also go to the popular hangouts and there will be plenty of free tables. No waiting for a seat! Arriving earlier than the crowds definitely has its advantages.
4. Better Parking for the Pre-con
If you’ve ever attended the SQL PASS Summit in Seattle and parked at the event, you know that parking is bad. There is no such thing as a close parking spot, even if you arrive early in the morning. The later you arrive, the worse the parking gets. The parking lot cna even get all full when the Summit is in full swing. Fortunately, the earlier in the week it is, the better parking will be. Parking for the Tuesday pre-cons will be better than parkign for the Summit and parking for the Monday pre-cons will be better than parking for the Tuesday pre-cons.
3. Scheduled Recovery Time for Your Brain
If you’ve attended pre-cons in the past or any intense all-day training, you’ve no doubt experienced that feeling where your brain is so overloaded with knowledge that one more bit of information might turn it to jelly. If you attend a pre-con on Monday and then take Tuesday off, your brain will have time to recover before the Summit gets into full swing. Your brain will have a built-in scheduled day of recovery. Theoretically, this means you will have better retention of not only what you learn on Monday, but also of what you learn the rest of the week. It’s a win-win situation all around.
2. A Planned Day Off in the Middle of the Week
Many, many years ago when I worked a government job, my scheduled days off were Tuesday and Wednesday. Yes, working every weekend was annoying, but I have to admit, those mid-week days off were incredible. My wife and I (she wasn’t yet my wife back then) could go for weekend trips and everything had openings. Nothing was ever busy during the day because everybody else was working. We could go to movies and there was no crowd. We could go pretty much anywhere we wanted to go, and there was an opening.
Take it from me, I’m speaking from experience. Having a day off in the middle of the week truly is awesome!
1. Smaller Group of Attendees in Training
If you have attended public schools or even just pay attention to local politics, then you know that smaller classrooms are better. People learn better in more favorable trainee to trainer ratios. As I said before, there will be less attendees on Monday. This means more time for each person to interact with the trainers. More answers to YOUR questions. More attention to YOUR problems. More time to voice YOUR opinions.
Final Thought
You’re the person paying (or at least the person who convinced someone to pay for you) for your pre-con experience so you should want to get the most for your money. A Monday pre-con gives you more for your money by giving you an all-around better training experience. I’m excited to be doing a Monday pre-con, and I’m planning to take Tuesday off (mid-week days off are AWESOME). Won’t you join me?
