With a mixture of sadness, delight and complete relief I am proud to say that SQLBits IV has been put to bed. Like the preparations for a wedding, I almost miss the fact that I don't have "the big day" to worry about any more - almost. And what a great day it was too. We had a record attendance reaching out to over 370 delegates; most of whom had never been to a SQLBits event before. We also had new sponsors and exhibitors too all of whom did their bit to make the day extra special. Manchester was a new destination for us to take SQLBits to as well so we didn't really know what the take up was going to be when we started out many moons ago. However, we have been over-whelmed by the positive energy, enthusiasm and passion for SQL Server that everyone brought to the event to make it such a success.
As has been widely documented we ran with 28 sessions and 28 different speakers, many speaking for the first time. I love this part of SQLBits. We try and make as many opportunities available for people to come and try their hand at presenting. It's only been through user groups and community events that I have been able to get into presenting and I thoroughly recommend it to anyone who hasn't tried it. You'll love it, fear it, hate it and love it all over again in the build up to the event. Then you get the butterflies immediately before, the exhilaration during, followed by a strange mix of relief and emptiness when it's over. The speakers at this event did us proud with excellent original content bringing different perspectives and their own real world experience to the fore. They came from all over the world and I have to thank them all for their time energy and effort. With my EMC hat on I'd like to extend special thanks to both Jamie and Simon from EMC Consulting for their efforts in joining me as a presenter at SQLBits. It was greatly appreciated and I hope you both enjoyed the experience as much as I did.
Our sponsors & exhibitors too did everything they could to make the day a success. We had competitions galore, great demos and technical insights from them. They pulled out all the stops and I can't thank them enough for this. Without these guys the event doesn't happen - it's as simple as that - they give us the funding and support to give you the delegates a great day. I know having spoken to them throughout the day that you also returned the favour and I am delighted to say that EVERYONE left SQLBits very happy indeed. So special thanks to Microsoft, Idera, SQL Sentry, Red-Gate, Attunity & Quest as our Platinum and gold sponsors. We also had for the first time opened up the event to exhibitors. This too seemed to work really well for both Carl and Steve at Inmage as well as Darren from McGraw-Hill. Finally a quick mention for our bronze sponsors hyperbac, Coeo for their continued support as well as newcomer SQLWorkshops.
My biggest regret is that I didn't get to see much of the sessions on the day as I was too busy running round trying to keep the event ticking along with the other organisers. However, I hope that I'll be able to watch as many as I can courtesy of the recordings that Microsoft's AV team took on the day. For those of you who wanted to cut yourselves in half so that you could attend two sessions at the same time then this still represents a great way for you to see as much of the content created by SQLBits IV as you can with the added bonus of keeping your body intact and in one piece. As soon as the recordings have been posted up onto the site following post-production we'll send out an email to all those registered on www.sqlbits.com. This can take a few weeks as there is literally hundreds of hours to go through and so I am sure Alan's team are going to be incredibly busy sorting all this out.
So to wrap up this post I'd like to thank my fellow organisers for their support and dedication in helping to pull this event together. It's been a hell of a ride - I am exhausted and delighted as I know you all are but the end result was well worth it. So final name check goes to Simon Sabin, Allan Mitchell, Darren Green, Chris Webb and Martin Bell for an awesome team effort.
If you have pictures and want to share don't forget about our SQLBits Facebook Group or the SQLBits hash tag #SQLBits on Twitter. There's also the SQLBits Linked In group to help keep in touch with all those people you met and connected with on the day. Perhaps just leave a comment on this or any of the organisers blogs..
All that is left to say is roll on SQLBits V! (once we've recovered :o))
Cheers, James