Quacky rides bikes!
SQL Saturday Dallas #734 is a wrap!
I’m still tired, 2 weeks later!
This is my 7th or 8th SQL Saturday as an attendee. 3rd as a pre-con presenter. 5th delivering a Saturday session, 1st as a sponsor and 1st as a co-organizer.
And it was a blast.
Months of prep work went into getting things ready…venue change, sponsor chasing, speakers, goodies for speakers and attendees, pre-con stuff, after-part, speaker dinner…you name it, I at least read an email about it. This was my first time around so I was following the lead of veterans on the NTSSUG board. We had over 1000 people register…I don’t recall the final tally of actual attendees but the place was packed all day!
My pre-con (DBA Fundamentals) went really well, with a record number of attendees. By design this class is usually small and intimate. The BI session next door had 65 or so! I’ve done this pre-con 3 times now, and this was the first time I actually had a technical issue (fonts went wacky) and a brain cramp in the middle. But, I recovered and people (hopefully) learned something they can take back with them to the office.
I also did my Disaster recovery session on Saturday, which I think went really well, and got a bonus of meeting someone I knew through a previous client and only by phone. I always think you’ve done your session well when people line up to chat with you afterwards:
Either something was really funny, or my backpack has way too much stuff in it…
Our Dallas DBAs sponsor table went really well…except everyone seemed to think I was raffling off my personal racing bike. Lots of folks came by for the raffle and the free t-shirts (100 only…gone in 90 minutes). Some even stopped to ask what we do, giving me the chance to promote our Apprentice program. Thanks to everyone that came by! And also to Richardson Bike Mart for providing the $150 gift card for our raffle.
Not the raffle item….just clickbait apparently:
The entire staff of Dallas DBAs, in official uniform
A very special shout out to my good friend and graphics/web guy, Jeff Miller of Igniss Images for shooting this event as a free service to the SQL Server Community. See the pics!
Thanks to all the attendees for coming, and to the Sponsors that make it possible!
