I'm just back from the event and it turned out very well, just over 170 attendees attending their choice of 30 sessions. Pensacola is a lot smaller than some cities so the 170 is an amazing turnout, and unusually there was only about a 10% no show rate compared to the average 30%. As far as the event logistics, made a few notes:

• No signs out pointing to event. It wasn't hard to find - in fact perhaps the easiest location to find out of all I have attended - but signs are still important. Feels more professional, gets people to where they need to be quickly. In general missing or too small signs have been the number one weak area, so we'll have to stress this more.
• Mild chaos when I arrived at 7:30 for the scheduled 8 am check in. I always come in early to watch, but many come in early so they don't have to wait in line or miss out. Turns out that the doors were late getting unlocked and that put things slightly behind schedule (this is the stuff that makes you toss and turn the night before!). Still, all was ready by 8 am so no harm done.
• Check in was split into two main lines and one for walk ins, worked fairly well. Name badges were on lanyards and this seemed to slow things down just a little sorting through them, but wasn't a big delay. For next year I'd suggest increasing staffing by a couple people just to be sure.
• Volunteers had different color polos from speakers, a nice touch
• Coffee and doughnuts were placed out of the way. I think the intent was to drive traffic past the sponsors (which I agree with), but think that overall they should have been in the main hall way.
• Good facility, plenty of room and rooms

Overall it was very smooth. As an attendee everything went as expected from check in to lunch to sessions. Karla did a fantastic job and her team of volunteers had everything in hand. Nicely done!

Now, some notes about the trip. I drove up with family Thursday evening so that I could spend a day in Pensacola exploring. About 2 hours into the trip the transmission decided not to shift correctly, so we spent close to two hours dropping it at the Ford dealer and getting a rental car. The rental car was an irritating experience, I'm so used to setting up the rental online that I had forgotten what it's like in person - upsell, upsell, and more upsell. We used Enterprise this time because it was close to Ford, and I think they've forgotten about their base mission of renting cars. At one point they offered to cut the rate on a larger SUV type vehicle to $50/day if I would take the "basic" package. That was $400 for four days. No thanks. So on to the hotel finally after close to a 10 hour drive for what should take 7-8 hours. Stayed at the Residence Inn and the room though labeled as non-smoking...didn't smell that way. Called that in and it turns out that the room "used" to be a smoking room. Offered to change the next day. Next day they offer another room - though with no enthusiasm - saying it wouldn't be much better.

Friday we drove around, Pensacola isn't huge and not a lot of things to do. Drove to Pensacola Beach (which is not the same as Pensacola!) which feels like a smaller version of Daytona, walked their board walk area and had lunch at Hemingways, highly recommended. Then off to the Naval Air Museum which was fun, and free! Go if you get the chance. Tim Mitchell called about 4 pm so we met for drinks and talk before heading to the speaker/volunteer party about 6:30. The party was the best I've been to, almost everyone was there and it was on an outside deck in an area with a few high top tables that encouraged standing, making the networking effort much easier. I worked at networking, also trying out my skills as a connector on Tim and Jack Corbett, introducing them to a few people where I thought it would be a good match.

Back to the event, I did a lunch time chat session with about 8 or 9 people about PASS. Lunch sessions are tough, not everyone gets the word and many just want a break, but it was a chance to meet a few people and I took it. It reinforced for me how much we need to improve marketing for PASS just for name recognition. Had a few good questions and somehow managed to stretch that talk to the hour we had available! Later in the day I did my usual presentation on statistics and that went well, some good questions, but I could see many of them were tired. Listening all day is hard work.

I left just before the raffle to head to the after party downtown, spending a few minutes with family in between. The after party location was ok, one of those bars that tends towards darker and louder than I prefer, but I was first there and found some outside seating in the back. Steve Jones arrived a few minutes later, and then Jack, Jessica Moss, Pam Shaw, Nathan Heaivilin, and Tim Mitchell. I had intended to do more 'networking' at the party, but I was tired and it was nice to just sit with friends and talk socially, no tech talk at all. Steve left about 7:30 or so and the rest of us talked about dinner, but no one seemed to move. Finally about 8:30 we left thinking about Outback, but decided to walk to find something, eventually winding up at The Fish House (speaker party location) and eating at the bar, talking about books, shoes, family, and many other things until about 10:30 pm.