All day in the Exhibition Area - TechEd Day 2

I spent the entire day in the Exhibition Hall at TechEd today. I'm sitting here and have just realized that! And most of the day was spent standing. No wonder my feet ache right now.

How would I summarise my day at TechEd 2004?  How about these photos....

• Standing at the JAM Stand meeting everyone,
• User Group Leaders meet the Student Ambassadors,
• Dedicated Developers & MVPs meet Eric Rudder,
• Party Band, Wall Climbers, Dodg'ems, Gymnasts, More Bumper Cars

The 3 highlights:

1. We had a meeting between the local user group leaders (such as Adam, Nick, Troy, Bill, Greg, Mitch) and the wonderful student ambassadors (such as Bernard). It was too good an opportunity not to miss. We are looking for synergies and getting these two groups of imporant & influential individuals connected would be awesome. 
2. We arranged an invite only dinner for our dedicated developers who were at teched, as well as the other MVPs and the student ambassadors to hobnob with Eric Rudder, Senior Vice President. Servers and Tools. Eric spent 2 hours chatting with the folks & eating pizza. I'm looking forward to reading some posts from the attendees.
3. The TechEd Party. It was held at Exhibition Park in the pavillion that is used as the National Tally Room during elections. The theme was extreme sports, and featured a number of fun sporty activities such as Bungie Trampolines, Snow board simulator, Horizontal Bungy Run, Wall Climbing, Bouncing Areas, Inflatable slides, Bumper cars, a fine selection of party food, airhockey tables,  music and a fantastic gymnastics show. I probably missed other activies so I'm sure the attendees will add more info in my comments.

The lowlights

1. I missed a number of sessions that I wanted to see - Michael Kleef, Joel Pobar, Brian Goldfarb, Adam Cogan, Dr Pete, Nick Weinholt, Mitch Denny, etc etc etc. This is one of the downsides of spending all day in the Exhibition Hall

Tomorrow is the final day, which includes Eric Rudder's closing keynote. That's going to be the focus for most of the day on Friday to ensure all goes well. Luckily we have Chuck looking after this. He is a seasoned veteran and knows what needs to be done.