I recently attended the Indy and Tulsa TechFests. Here’s how the two compared.

Both drew about 500 per day (Indy was on a Saturday and Tulsa over was on a Thursday and Friday). Both had great swag. Indy had the better food (a huge Italian lunch buffet!) and Tulsa has the better facilities (there was plenty of room at OSU!).

For those primarily interested in SQL Server, Indy was the place to be. It offered two SQL-related tracks: one for DBAs and one for those interested in BI. Often I wanted to be in both sessions at once. The best presentation was Jimmy May’s on Disk Partition Alignment. It’s too much to summarize here, but you can read about it on his blog, or better yet, you can catch his presentation next month at PASS.

Tulsa had the basics of SQL Server covered, but the real appeal was the mind-numbing number of tracks (17!) and topics and speakers (4 cool keynote addresses). There was something for everyone. Since the SQL track was already full when I submitted my topics, I ended up presenting in the eMarketing and Business track. This turned out to be more fun than I had anticipated. It gave me a chance to meet and interact with a cross-section of attendees.

Finally, hats off to all the organizers! I had a chance to spend some time with Tulsa’s David Walker and Indy’s Dave Leininger and John Magnabosco. All three were incredible. If any of them were exhausted or frustrated, it didn’t show. What did show was their enthusiasm and passion for excellence. I will definitely be back next year.