.Net Jonesie - TechEd Split

Thursday, January 26, 2006

I saw from Peter Himschoot's blog that TechEd Europe has been split into two separate events, one for IT Pros and the other for Developers.

I would love to see a developer only conference in New Zealand and TechEd is now probably big enough to split into two. At least the last two TechEd's have sold out very quickly and Auckland does not have a bigger venue. I'm not sure what the mix of IT Pro / Developer is - I'm guessing it's about 40/60. A thousand or so Developers would be a good number.

TechEd is a very expensive event to hold so I suppose splitting it would almost double the cost, but here's some ideas to help reduce that:

Scrap the vendors hall as they add nothing to the content of the event (except the vendors with Segways).
Actually, if you just get rid of the vendors hall then Sky City would probably be big enough for a few hundred more attendees.
Scrap the party - the cost of this must be getting ridiculous. I heard the rough cost of the 2003 TechEd party. 2005 must have been more. You could buy a warehouse apartment in central Auckland and have a non-stop year long party for less!
Splitting it will make things go a little quicker - maybe 2 days will be enough for each event.
Scrap the hands on labs and just give people the VPC images instead.
Make people pay for internet access. I know what this cost for one TechEd a few years ago (2003?) and it's just horrendous. Most people just need to check their email occasionally or surf MSDN. They can save the p0rn downloading for their hotel rooms.
Reduce the full ticket price by $400 and increase the corporate price by 50%. Business can afford to pay more and send less people. I know for some organisations that this is a junket for the staff.

Ok, so some of these ideas may be a bit controversial but really, TechEd can't get any bigger the way it is. It's time to think about a change.

Thursday, January 26, 2006 7:15:19 AM (New Zealand Daylight Time, UTC+13:00)

Comments [3] General |

Saturday, February 04, 2006 12:49:24 AM (New Zealand Daylight Time, UTC+13:00)

Dude, are you nuts? The party should not be scrapped, it is an important networking event. Seriously.

Vendors should stay, especially the ones that give away free stuff. I bet they pay for their booth space, so the cost to MS should be negligible.

Internet access *shouldn't* be expensive. MS have the business connections to get it for cheap. If it is expensive then they are either paying SkyCity for it (and SkyCity charge whatever they want), or they are being plain ripped off.

*Do not* increase the corporate price by 50%. You obviously have not had to battle the budget weenies in order to go. Even big corporate software houses like to pinch pennies.

And i doubt that splitting it up would benefit many people here in NZ. In the US and Europe people tend to specialise their skills, whereas in NZ we tend to be multiskilled - which means a lot of developers also have a vested interest in networking.

On the developer side of things, i would really love to see some more hardcore sessions - there is nothing worse than going to a 300 or 400 level session that sounds good and almost falling asleep because you either know it, or the content is too basic. When i go to sessions i want to learn cool stuff that i don't know, stuff that won't take me 2 seconds to find thru google.

So far i have disagreed with pretty much everything you said :) Let's hope a few more people have opinions on this.

shane

Wednesday, February 15, 2006 12:18:34 PM (New Zealand Daylight Time, UTC+13:00)

Upon reflection, I might have been a tad too radical. I party is nice to have, but it could be done more cheaply. The vendors probably bring attendees with them - and those Vodafone & RedBull girls are always welcome.

Still, unless Microsoft are going to build a new venue, TechEd can't get much bigger.

Peter

Friday, February 24, 2006 3:54:33 PM (New Zealand Daylight Time, UTC+13:00)

Peter,

I've put up a post on some of your comments (which are great) letting you know my point of view in relation to them. http://blogs.msdn.com/smcbreen/archive/2006/02/24/538352.aspx

Cheers,
Sean

Sean McBreen

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