Why Code Camps Rock

I've spoken at everything from a 3 person user group, to large tradeshows.  It sill amazes me that the Code Camp attendees are actually more engaged than most Tradeshows I've been to.  The South Florida Code Camp (#soflcc if you're following on Twitter) is turning into a tradeshow in size, with booths set up in a quasi-expo area, a full list of sessions (72!) and 800+ registered attendees.  But the big difference between a code camp and a tradeshow.. code camps are free. 

I just finished my talk on Silverlight LOB, and the room was packed.  Normally I would say "standing room only" but in this case, there wasn't even standing room.  I had one of the other presenters peek in my room and let out a sigh - "So this is where everyone is.." (sorry!)   The best part was that even with a full room, the audience was fully engaged.  They were asking the kind of questions that made it evident that they were actually paying attention.. 

I took a few pictures about 10 minutes before the session started, of an already packed room.  I couldn't stitch all of the photos together, but I did manage to stitch a few of them using ICE.  The lighting in the room was pretty poor, so the camera on my iPhone didn't take the best pictures - but grainy and a bit blurry - you still get the point.

Thanks to all the attendees - and thanks to the group over in South Florida; they seriously know how to run a code camp.  For those who attended my session, download the files here.  Also, some of the references for Silverlight -

FaceOut, Quince, MVVM