SQLBits X Summary

SQLBits X finished over a week ago and so it seems a bit late to be blogging about it. To be honest, though, I needed that week to recover from the conference, a cold I picked up the day before it started, and all of the other work-related stress that’s been building up over the last few months.

So, the obligatory bit of reportage. SQLBits X was indeed as big as we were hoping and behind the scenes everything went surprisingly smoothly; I guess after nine previous events we must have learned something about running a tech conference! I don’t know what the official numbers are but we packed 1400 swag bags on the Wednesday afternoon before it all started in a five-hour bag stuffing marathon, and on the Saturday evening we only had about 100 or so left, so that makes it easily 50% larger than any other SQLBits. We had a great line-up of speakers including a large number of international SQL celebrities, more than we’ve ever had before, and the parties on Thursday and Friday night were well-attended and more importantly good fun.  I don’t know how SQLBits could get any better except by getting bigger and offering even more of the same, although if we did get bigger it would probably end up killing a lot of what makes SQLBits special and push us beyond the limits of what an amateur organisation can cope with. My thanks go out to my fellow committee members Simon Sabin, Allan Mitchell, Martin Bell, James Rowland-Jones, Darren Green, Chris Testa-O’Neill, Tim Kent and Christian Bolton, as well as all of the team of helpers who gave up their time free of charge including Annette Allan, Helen Lau, and many others.