The conference has passed, and what a great couple of days it was. During the lead up to the conference, we had a few minor snafus, like some ticketing platform issues and near the conference, our website would throw up a delightful message:

We’re having trouble connecting

This was happening about half the time when people were going to check the schedule.

And as anyone who has been involved in running a conference knows… that is really small stuff. In fact, on the two days of the conference it all seemed to go so smooth I had to wonder a few times if I was imagining it. This was thanks largely to others in the managing team. I was helpful, but I mostly stay out of the management of conferences other than lending a hand where needed.

Workshop day

Workshop day was great, and we had some great speakers, friends from Raleigh did what seemed to be an intense session, plus a few members of our conference management team and several more too. We had pretty good attendance!

I took the pictures for the day, and here is a gallery of a few of those pictures!

Once the day was over we had a lovely speakers reception in the Mariott restaurant that is primarily used for breakfast and got a chance to chat with speakers and have a small small plate (or two) of some delicious small foods

Conference day

This was a really well executed day, starting with a panel discussion about some of the interesting values of AI and going through the day with programming, admin, hardware, database, etc sessions, but I have to admit, a lot of the best attended sessions were about AI.

We had great sponsors and awesome attendees all day.

I went to several sessions, starting with a good friend Grant Fritchey who came over to TN from Oklahoma to do a session mixing his lover for Ham Radio with his love for PostgreSQL and in fact, vibe coding.

Note: pictures picked at random from some I took for the conference (before I did a lot of cleanup).

I did my session during the session on the differences between dimensional and relational design and then I floated around taking pictures of the sessions and caught a session from Jason Romans along with spending some time in the hallway track.

After the main day was over a rather large number of the attendees gathered in the same dining space as the previous night for the afterparty (which is one of the big parts of a lot of conferences where lifelong friendships are forged).

The Scenic Route

One of my largest traditions is taking a scenic excursion when heading back from a conference, but this time, the only scenic route was when I missed my turn and I drove through some back roads on the way home through Chattanooga.

I fully admit that I was bone tired after going 13+ hours both days so I was ready to be home and into bed.

Coming Up?

As every conference organizer knows, the thing that happens soon after a conference ends is… taking a few weeks to recoup. But then, you decide if you want to do it all again (which we are pretty sure we want to already!) and then we start planning. For next year, and maybe for other conferences?

Who knows, but for now, it is time to take a few days off and get back to writing more.

Look for an announcement in the not that distant future (less than a year at least!) about Scenic City Summit 2027!