These are things I like that I consider differences from last years conference. There are plenty of other things I like that don’t need to be listed here.

• The overall tone and feel of the conference was much less marking and much more technical
• Refreshingly honest keynotes. There was a lot of coming clean about the history of MySQL and the conference.
• Percona is very technical but it is also a business. They are very good about bringing out the technical and not being pushy about the business.
• No ice cream social. A thousand people shaking sticky hands with each other is never a good idea.
• percona.tv
• The conference was busy but never crowded

Now for the dislike:

• Only one song before every session.
• The chairs. Damn the chairs.
• Wifi failed more often than it worked. Most of the time I was tethered to my phone.
• smartcity doesn’t work with ssh port forwarded dns/socks poor man vpn.

Just some things to note and tips for next year

• Classic rock bump in music for the keynotes didn’t really fit.
• Percona folks are usually really good about having information in the slides. So if you have to choose between skipping a Percona talk for some other talk skip the Percona one because you can go back and read the slides.
• There is a secret clean bathroom that usually stays clean until the last day. I’m not saying where this is.
• Monty’s BoF always has black vodka.
• The black vodka is dangerous so be careful.

I was tempted to skip the conference this year because last year was so depressing. I decided to give Percona a chance at hosting it and I’m glad I did. I look forward to attending and maybe presenting next year.