Now that you’ve gotten ready for the climate and have done your preparation for the conference, it’s time to turn your attention to the celebration.
Celebrating in Style
Tech conferences are a great place to get information, share insights with other technologists, and to just celebrate with comrades from around the planet. Each night, the vendors and sponsors normally host events. This is great place to socialize with other customers, ask those probing questions, and generally leave with a full stomach. Whatever your preference regarding celebration, there are options available everywhere for you.
This year, VMworld is again hosting their customer appreciation event (named VMworld Fest) on Wednesday night. Celebrate with the other attendees with jazz bands, dueling pianos, a west coast DJ, a Prince cover band, and Royal Machines on the main stage. Food, drinks, music, and activities all night long. This is the “big party,” but that doesn’t mean that the other days of the conference are without events.
Spend some time speaking with your vendors in these last days before the conference. Ask them if they have any events after hours. This year, I’ve got the privilege of speaking at the SolarWinds User Group (SWUG) hosted at the Seascape at Shark Reef Aquarium in the Mandalay Bay on Tuesday night– just a hop, skip, and jump away form the expo floor.
So, you have SolarWinds on Tuesday, and VMware on Wednesday – this leaves Sunday, Monday, and Thursday for you to plan for yourself. If you need some help or inspiration, I would recommend heading over to VMBlog and read up on the VMworld 2018 US Party List. For the last few years, this was my go-to for planning my evenings.
Personal Recommendations
After about 20 years in the IT field, I would make two recommendations for the conference:
- Pick one night to get together with only your co-workers. Take the notes that you’ve collected and with the rest of your team, compare and contrast what you’ve seen. This is an excellent time to collect your thoughts and come up with plans for the next year based on the technology you’ve witnessed. Whether that’s new software solutions, planning out an NSX lab, or trying out some new gear from a vendor, this is the time where everyone can sync up and coalesce on future plans for your organization.
- Keep it professional in all places. This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t have fun and cut loose a little bit, but keep it in check. “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” is a catchy slogan, but it doesn’t hold true for the long term. I was unlucky enough to have been that guy at a conference long ago who just had too much. Thankfully, I was with some great coworkers who were nice enough to keep me in check. The last thing you want to do after returning from a tech conference is to immediately update your resume.
So that’s it. Be responsible in all things: hydration, planning, and partying.