For some reason this has been hot in my search options of late, and since I’m speaking on “Deploying Your Applications to SQL Azure” there, I needed to figure it out myself. So here’s a brief list of costs for the event.
Registration: $299+$199 for pre-con seminars–so $500
Flight: Orlando is one of the cheapest places one can fly in the US. So go ahead and budget $400, but you can probably get there for two.
Ground Transportation: Shuttles in Orlando seem pricey, so budget $60 round trip for shuttles.
Hotels: The convention hotel is a bit pricey at $159/night, but I found nearby hotels in the $70 range. If you can swing it-get a roommate and share costs. Even estimating 4 nights @$70, say $300.
Meals: Breakfast and lunch are covered by the conference, and if you’re trying to network hard, you can probably find some vendors to invite you to a night time party or a dinner. So you can really save some money there. I’ll include $100 for food, just in case things fall through.
So we’re up to $1400–it’s about half the cost of what going to Seattle for PASS would be, and it’s some really awesome SQL Server training.
More info about SQL Rally here.
Hello Danton,
I see that you share presentations and slides in your posts.
Will you going to share some with us who will not be able to attend SQL Rally?
I need to re-check the rules for SQL Rally–some of the paid conferences take ownership of your slide deck. As long as I can, I will post my slides to slideshare after the conference.
Thanks for the breakdown, Joey. In addition to the lower cost of a SQL Rally compared to the Summit is the geographical element. PASS recognizes that holding the Summit so often in Seattle (to maximize Microsoft support and attendance) creates a greater hardship for members in other parts of the country.