Tech-Ed Issue #1

I was dissapointed with a choice made yesterday at the SteveB keynote. We got to the room at about 8:45 (15 minutes before it started). However, we were turned away. Speakers/Staff/Attendees all have different badges and any non-attendees were told they needed to watch in another room. Nicely enough this room was only about 2 miles away so I got a good exercise walking. However, that room only had a few screens up and was filled with staff and speakers, but not attendees.

So what was the problem with that? I mean the attendees are the ones who paid, so they really deserved the seats so they could watch the keynote. However, it meant that I couldn't talk with any of the attendees. It meant I couldn't read their reactions. I couldn't actually ask them "is that going to really be helpful to you." I couldn't see any of the myriad expressions (doubt, enthusiasm, etc.) that would have been so helpful

I would have been happy just sitting on the floor. But maybe there wasn't even enough space for that