Teched Australia has just ended for another year, the second year running they've held it on the Gold Coast.
By all accounts, the event was a success, thanks to the hard work put in by the teams at Microsoft.
Unfortunately, Teched Australia 2010 seems to have been a victim of its own success, with over 3100 delegates attending this year. Many of the 300 and 400 level tracks were held in rooms that were simply not adequate to fit the number of attendees.
A stunning example was Joel Pobar and Nick Gunn's talk - the meeting room it was held in was filled beyond capacity over 15 minutes BEFORE the session was due to start and ended up with people sitting on the stage, in the aisle and beside the podium, just to be able to see the talk. Even then, people were turned away, not being able to even stick their head in the door.
This is not an isolated example, based on the discussions I've had with colleagues and other attendees - many of the Instructor Led Labs, Hands On Labs and talks were filled to capacity and beyond.
There are a few possible ways to resolve this, but I think the only acceptable solution would be to split TechEd Australia up into two conferences - Infrastructure and Development. This would mean less contention for rooms and more opportunity to hold more of those really popular 400-level tracks.
For the Teched Developer conference, I'd also like to see some more community focus; having that extra time and room will mean that's more feasible.
Splitting TechEd will add to the cost and there will be more logistical headaches - but these are surely resolvable.
Your thoughts?
Edit: Updated, oops, forgot Nick Gunn's last name. Fixed some grammatical mistakes.
Edited by Elly Hart, 10.23am, August 29, 2010.
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Posted in: [Miscellaneous], [User Groups, Events, Conferences, Meetups]