SQLSaturday #49 – Orlando Update

This is the big week for SQLSaturday #49 – Orlando.  Sunday and Monday I spent time finishing the event guides.  I had them printed at my office (we have a printing department), but I had to provide labor for folding and stapling.  So I spent about 3 hours finishing the event guides.  I think they came out pretty nice with a color cover and black & white insides.  We had some last minute schedule changes that I thought I had included in the event guide, but, alas, when I was folding them I noticed I had missed changes in the PowerShell track.  Otherwise, everything looks good.

Last night, Tuesday, we had the bag stuffing party at Andy Warren’s office.  We had 5 volunteers brave the traffic  (major accident on I4 east just at the exit for Andy’s office) to help us out for the evening, Brooke and her husband Joe, Mike A, Josh, and Wes.  They did great work and we were done by about 8:30, so it only took about 2.5 hours to get the event bags decorated, speaker evaluations sorted, name tags put in the holders, and the bags stuffed.  For our event bags we decided to go on the cheap with plain, brown paper bags with handles.  We gave sponsors an option to send us stickers to put on the bags, but didn’t have any success on getting any provided.  We may try this again next year, but get the message out sooner.  So, instead of stickers, we provided some paint/markers and volunteers put a big #49 on one side and the paid Platinum sponsor name or names on the other side.  Brooke got especially creative and even did some bags crossword style.

While the volunteers were taking care of the event bags, I went through and organized the SWAG.  I was a bit nervous that we wouldn’t have much to give away, but the sponsors really did a great job providing us with some great give-aways.  I sorted through all the books (60+) and set aside a book to give away in each session, except those sessions in the sponsor track, trying to match a book with the session topic.  I couldn’t match all the topics, but we will have an item to be given out in each session.  I picked this idea up from SQLSaturday #41 – Atlanta.  What I like about this idea, is that it reduces the length of the end of day raffle and limits it to mostly “big-ticket” items.  Here’s some of the items we’ll be raffling off at the end of the day:

• $100 American Express gift card from Quest
• Apple TV from Veredus
• SQL DBA Bundle from RedGate
• Telerik Ultimate Collection from Telerik
• 2 Padfolios with a license for PrimalScript 2009 w/ upgrade to 2011 from Sapien
• 1 Padfolio with a license fro PrimalScipt 2009
• 3 copies of SSIS-DTS Package search from Gerasus Software
• iPad from FusionIO
• SQL Admin Toolset from Idera
• CA Erwin Data Model Validator from CA Technologies
• Flip Ultra HD from Confio
• Fuji 14megapixel Camera from CozyRoc 

That isn’t a full list, just some of what I’ve seen or been informed of.  Our other sponsors, like expressor will all have a nice item to raffle off as well.  There are also a bunch of t-shirts and other items that we’ll be tossing off the walkway.  Anyone have a t-shirt cannon or sling-shot we can borrow?

Things are going very smoothly so far, although we can ALWAYS use more volunteers. 

Hope to you there.  If you haven’t registered you can still register here.  There is also still room to register for the $99 Database Design Seminar on Friday by Louis Davidson.