It's a little late, but here's my review of Microsoft TechEd 2004 in San Diego...
I've never been to a Microsoft conference before, so I was quite excited when I got the word that I was going to TechEd in San Diego. Following Scott Watermasysk's example, I'll give a semi day by day review:
Sunday
I arrived in San Diego around noon and spent the following 4 hours trying to find a hotel room. Long story short, I ended up on Shelter Island with a nice room. The hotel had a great view of downtown. After a quick bite to eat, I registered for TechEd and was able to catch Scott Hanselman's code generation BOF session. Very interesting stuff.
Monday
Wow. 11,000 geeks in one room to catch Steve Ballmer's keynote speech. He introduced WSE 2.0 and spoke about the upcoming Visual Studio 2005 Team System, which looks like it will be very cool. Spent the rest of the day wandering around the San Diego convention center eating lots of free food and drinks and attending sessions. Worked Transcender's booth for a little while, which was great to be able to meet some of our customers.
Tuesday - Wednesday
Spent more time attending sessions. Keith Brown's “Writing Secure Code” session was the best session I attended, by far. On Wednesday, I was able to sight see a little around San Diego. It's a beautiful city!
Thursday
This was my final day attending sessions. Things started to wind down around the convention center, although it was still packed. The attendee party was held at Sea World, which was a blast.
Overall, I was very pleased with my experience at TechEd. However, one disappointment was the cabanas. This year, they were trying something new with the cabana concept, which is a great concept, but I think the implementation wasn't quite right. It was hard to see the monitors due to the sun (apparently, the dreary sky initiative (DSI) didn't last), and you really couldn't hear the presenters past the first couple of rows. At any rate, it was a great experience, and I look forward to future TechEds and PDCs!