Tag: summit

This is another memory of the PASS Summit, this one inspired by Argenis Fernandez, who wanted to raise money for Doctors Without Borders. I wrote a bit about the effort that year.

If you have a memory, share it with #SeattleSummitMoments.

Nothing major this year, though I will have a different hat.

A few years ago at the Summit, Andy Warren and I set up a Game night. We convinced the organizers to give us a room for a few hours one night. We invited people, charged a small admission that was really a 2 drink minimum to fund the bartender, and we bought a few games. People coming brought a ton of games, and it was a fun, quiet night.

There is no official Game Night this year, which is slightly disappointed this year, but this year is a reboot of the Summit, so I understand. Plus, I don’t have the energy to run something.

I’m hoping a few of you in the community pick this up. There are a few community events listed on the Summit site, but I’d like to see more.

I’m calling on a few of you to set up Game Nights. Pick a night, pick a time, and set up a free EventBrite event to get people to register for tickets. I might expect a 30% drop off, so if you want to get 10 people together to do something, allow 13 tickets.

For Game Night, all you really need is a few tables where people can gather. I’ve seen people play games in hotels or the WSCC lobby. There are a few game venues around Seattle as well. You can bring some games, or ask others to do so.

Running an event can be easy. Jenn and Sean McCown do a meetup every year at Top Pot, literally just asking people to show up, share a cup of coffee, and chat.

If you want to find a few fellow gamers while you’re at the Summit, think about putting together a small event. Email the Summit and get your event listed.

Redgate started a new marketing thing and I like it. They’re asking for memories of attending the Summit in Seattle. I’ve been lucky enough to go to many of them, so I have a lot, but I wanted to take a moment and think about this one.

If you have a memory, share it with #SeattleSummitMoments.

PASS used to give a referral fee for getting people to register with the Summit. At SQL Server Central, we published the code and marketed to the community and usually we’d get a few hundred people to use our code. This meant we often had US$4-5k of income coming from the event.

We didn’t need it, and our plan every year was to throw an opening night party and spend all the money. We’d contract with a party company to run a casino and then I’d buy prizes with the extra money. The casino party cost around $2500-3000 or so and then we’d buy $2-3k in prizes.

Here’s a shot (courtesy of Pat Wright) of me setting up one year.

People had a great time, and we usually packed the room.

We’d have more people wanting to come than used our code, so we started charging admission. I’d have to guess how many people might come and then we’d purchase another few hundred dollars of prizes and hope we made the money back. Usually we didn’t lose too much money.

Amazing memories and I wish we were still doing something like this.