A personal review of Ignite 2024
As someone who has been going to Microsoft conferences for a very long time starting with TechEd in Auckland back in the 1990s, I had been looking forward to Microsoft Ignite 2024 for many months. This blog talks about that journey to Ignite where we were attendees, presenters and sponsors.
The lead up to Microsoft Ignite 2024
As part of my businesses, which I own together with Conrad and Neil, we were going to sponsor and attend the conference in 2023, but when it was announced that it would be limited to 4000 people and be hosted in Seattle and it looked like it was an AI fest, we opted to give it a miss. Like others I told myself I’d watch the videos afterwards, but as always that didn’t happen. It is just too hard to carve out time to sit and watch videos when life is busy.
Anyway, we put ourselves in line for 2024 as we presumed (aka hoped) that Microsoft would go back to larger conferences. Finally at the start of June 2024, the ball started rolling. It was going to be an in person event, and slowly but surely information was starting to be released. We opted to get both a partner and a technology sponsorship, as they both had pieces that we liked.
From a sponsors perspective the whole process, while it often seemed last minute and almost seat of the pants, in general worked ok. Definitely there was a lot of needless stress, but we did get there and in the end we had a good booth, and most of the sponsor package items were achieved or delivered. One that wasn’t was meetings with other partners which MS was going to organise but those were left to the very last minute and in the end didn’t happen
We booked flights early on and opted to stay longer. This was mainly to organize swag and to meet with some clients before the conference. In hindsight we could have cut that time a little bit shorter but it was amazing to catch up with friends. We opted to get accommodation via Airbnb instead of hotels and that was a great success. We were only 5 mins walk from the conference, the downside being it was a $20 Uber ride into the city. All of us being in one apartment did mean that we had to work as a team, and i loved that side of our journey.
The conference itself
The conference itself kind of started on Monday. We were able to pick up badges (for which the line was insanely long, but moved well), our backpack and water bottle swag (for which the line was also insanely long and did NOT move well, in fact by the time we got to the front the swag had run out and we had to line up on one of the other days), and there were add-on sessions. Now to be honest the $350 for the additional session was totally not worth the money. The session wasn’t technical enough, and the presenters seemed ill prepared. We intentionally chose a non AI session as we were sure that the conference itself would again be an AI fest. We talked about cloud native devices, which is a topic dear to our heart, but all the info was really surface information, level 100 at best.
Tuesday the conference started for real. The keynote kicked us off at 8am with Satya and others delivering their now usual and exciting opening to the event. As expected AI and Copilot features in most sentences. The keynote was meant to finish around 10am and then the Expo opening at 1030am, but by 930am a call for help came from the booth. The floodgates were already open and the two people on the booth could not cope with demand. So we raced to boost our capacity. Now why people were allowed in before 1030am is a mystery to us as on the following days the start time was strictly enforced, but needless to say Tuesday was a very strong day on the booth. We don’t know if that was the same for everyone, or if our message of device migrations without Fresh Start resonated, but hundreds of people and companies had questions for us, and were excited to meet with us. The Expo closed at 630pm with our first Lego draw, where we gave away Hogwarts castle to Adrian. Straight after that we split into teams with some doing a dinner with clients and others going to the eNow dinner that we sponsored, and some staying for the mix and mingle.
Wednesday was mostly a rinse and repeat of Tuesday with the Expo again open for us from 8am to 630pm, another Lego set give away, this time the coveted Millennium Falcon which went to Antti from Finland, and again hundreds of attendees visiting the booth. One change this morning was that I had to present for 12 minutes on PowerSyncPro. We had practiced the session a number of times in the lead up, and thanks to the input for the whole team, the presentation was a great success. We had at least 4 times more attendees than the session before and after it, and aside from the PowerPoint clicker not working, the slides behaved themselves and I remembered all the points I was trying to get across. The session must have resonated as we had at least 20 people come to visit the booth straight after it to ask more in depth technical questions. I attended a Mark Russonivich session on Azure innovation, which I’ve always loved in the past. I still enjoyed it, but it didn’t have the wow factor that it did before, and the audience I felt was a bit flat too. The food during Ignite was actually ok (it’s been hit and miss in the past) The queues for food were well managed, and you had the option of hot food collected and eating at the tables, or the take out variety which was more sandwich and salad based and often taken back to the stand. The night for us ended with our sponsored eNow party at the puttery. The venue was a bit outside of the city center, but not a bad bar and lots of MVPs, customers and fellow sponsors. We didn’t like the two different colored wristbands which turned out to mean different price ranges of drinks that could be ordered, as we had sponsored the event and didn’t know ahead of time that this was happening. Aside from that a good night on the town.
Thursday seemed more like the final push, and again at the Expo from 8am to 630pm, this time the Lego Avengers Tower went to Michael. Surprisingly, the footfall at the booth was still strong and we had some great conversations with larger partners and end customers alike. By the end of Thursday our feet were very sore after three long days. There was a Microsoft celebration on at Navy Pier but it didn’t start straightaway, and by the time we had sat at the apartment and got Uber Eats in, we were done for the day. Had an amazing time with three MVPs, Nic, Chris and Brian though and chatted for hours over chicken and pizza.
Friday was a half day of sessions, and I picked about the only non AI session on AKS Automatic. This session was well run and the demo software was amazing. Spoke to the presenters afterwards as PowerSyncPro is embarking on a SaaS version and AKS comes up in our discussions a lot. It was good to get my own instincts confirmed that AKS isn’t the right step for us to take at this time, given the nature of our software, the regularity of our application’s usage and the size/experience of our team with AKS.
Traveling home and the wrap up
We traveled home on Saturday afternoon, and had a wrap up beforehand. We collated our lists of things that went well, what we could improve and what to avoid. The trip home became arduous for some as storms in UK meant cancellations. Our flight from Chicago was ok other than a missed approach where the engines powered back up as soon as the wheels touched down the first time, and the second landing stuck, albeit being quite bumpy, and eventually we got back into the terminal. Conrad was the last person to arrive home in New Zealand, but sadly not that long after Fabrice, Anna and Nik who all had long delays in London waiting for an onward flight.
All in all I think it was a great event, with room for improvement especially from the Microsoft side where the almost obsession with AI/Copilot is grating even with their own speakers. Yes we all know AI is cool and Copilot is of course essential for every person, but in the real world we do still do some work without AI/Copilot able to do it for us. As you can tell I missed some of the in depth technical sessions and Microsoft people to talk with in the Expo as well as at the bar afterwards. Still hopefully this is the first of many in person conferences and we continue to Build on it (see what I did there…)
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