SQL Saturday #34 Wrap-up

Whew!

It’s over. New England Data Camp v2, aka, SQL Saturday #34, was completed on Saturday. Going in we had maxed out our online registrations at 500, an accomplishment by itself. During registration on the day of the event, we  shut down registration and just started waving people through the door at 300. Our best guess at the total attendance was 340 (not the 375 I tweeted during the delirium of the day). There were a couple of minor glitches and one major one. The major glitch was not enough vegetarian food. We just ran out. Everyone else seemed to get a meal. We had just a few, read that 3 or 4, sandwhiches at the end of the day.

I want to personally thank Adam Machanic for all the hard work he did putting the thing together. It wouldn’t have happened at all without him and it was as good as it was because of him. Just as much thanks goes out to Jim O’Neil of Microsoft for all his assistance putting things together. We also had a lot of help from Chris Bowen, also of Microsoft. Thanks guys.

Our sponsors were excellent people. In no particular order, Confio, Expressor, Microsoft, PASS, Idera and Quest all stepped up and helped us out. I want to thank them personally, and if you attended the event and got anything useful out of it, you should thank them as well. Around the same time next year guys, please.

We also got some support from O’Reilly who sent us some swag. Same goes for Processor Magazine. We gave away everything they sent us and could have used more.

I also want to thank the speakers. We had industry heavy weights and people speaking for the first time and everything else in between. I didn’t see all the speakers or all the rooms, but I made a point of getting around and sitting through sessions when I could. I learned stuff. I saw great presentations and I saw full rooms. You guys rocked and rocked hard. Good job and thank you for all your time and effort.

Finally, I want to thank everyone who came. It was a great community event and everyone I spoke with seemed to have managed to pull something out of it, networking, learning, or teaching.