More than one person has asked me, “Why are you running your own pre-conference event instead of doing a PASS Summit pre-con? Isn’t that a bad thing, like you’re taking away attendees from PASS?”
I really, really want to do PASS pre-cons again, but for now, it all comes down to a few gotchas in the PASS speaker contract.
At PASS, we’re not allowed to use our scripts.
The speaker contract says:
You recognize and agree that the purpose of your session(s) is to provide educational content and is not to be used as a sales or marketing platform. Personal contact information and applicable copyright notices are permitted within the PASS provided PowerPoint template, however, company and/or third-party branded logos, products, and/or services, with businesses that you have a monetary relationships, are not permitted and are restricted to the biography slide of the PowerPoint template.
While they’re free, sp_AskBrent®, sp_Blitz®, sp_BlitzCache®, etc are all products, and we’re in a monetary relationship with our business.
If you’re an attendee who wants to learn how to use our stuff to make your SQL Server faster and more reliable, who do you want to learn from?
At PASS, we’re not allowed to give swag away for free.
At our in-person events, we like to give away t-shirts, stickers, prizes, and recorded versions of some of our classes to make learning easier for students.
No go at PASS, where the contract says:
Branded sales and marketing promotions, draws, or distribution of any kind of materials, including, but not limited to, company educational videos, shirts, mugs, buttons, food, magnets etc., are prohibited on the premises of the Washington State Convention Center, and The Conference Center, for the duration of the Event on any of the pre-conference and general conference days, October 24-28, 2016 except for PASS Summit exhibitor and sponsors within the established Exhibit Hall.
Catch that last part? It’s okay for sponsors, but not for speakers.
PASS says they’ll ban our employees permanently.
The scariest part of the contract says (when referring to the above swag section):
Breach of conduct may result in the immediate termination of your session(s) and/or possible exclusion from future PASS Events.
Ouch. I can’t ask Angie, Doug, Erik, Richie, and Tara to take that risk.
So we’re running our own less-expensive off-site event.
Doing a thought exercise during last year’s FreeCon at the Big Picture Theater
We’re renting out the Big Picture Theater in downtown Seattle for Monday & Tuesday before the conference. Trust me, these are the most comfortable chairs you’ll ever have for a training event, and the best projector screen!
We’ll teach you how to find the slowest queries in your SQL Server and tune them – all using our helpful free tools. We’ll give away fun prizes and laugh about ’em.
And it’s definitely not about the money – we’re passing huge savings on to you. The whole 2-day pre-con will cost you just $299 – as opposed to $495 for a ONE-day PASS pre-con.
Go check it out, and see you in Seattle.
24 Comments. Leave new
This is a fact.
Hahaha, thanks sir!
Kendra!!
I have a question for you Brent for clarity’s sake. Regarding this part:
At PASS, we’re not allowed to give swag away for free.
At our in-person events, we like to give away t-shirts, stickers, prizes, and recorded versions of some of our classes to make learning easier for students.
So, are you saying that you can’t give away any of these items during your session for any reason (asking a great question, answering a great question, etc.) Or are you expecting to set up a table somewhere or just walk around handing out swag?
Are these rules enforced across the board for all speakers that work for consulting companies?
Rie – correct, the way I read those rules, you’re not allowed to give anything away, full stop, regardless of whether it’s a session or not:
That means no giveaways during your session. either. Are the rules enforced across the board? No, not from what I’ve seen – we’ve been given a talking-to by PASS, but it feels more like a shakedown. They’re looking for companies with money and saying, “You have to pay us if you want to give anything away” – but they haven’t approached individual speakers who do these same exact things.
I’ve seen other consulting company employees/founders do exactly the same thing, give away stuff from their companies and from other companies. I only assume that PASS is enforcing the rules with everyone, but I just don’t have a way of knowing that. It would be pretty ratty of me to make this about them – I wanna be the good guy who obeys the rules, regardless of whether anybody else gets away with it. (Good guys do okay in the long run.)
I’ll be honest (as I’m prone to do), if I’m paying to attend a pre-con, then I don’t want to sit through a marketing session. The same goes for a regular PASS Summit session. Give away some SWAG, training, whatever at the end? That’s different. I guess it’s a fine line to walk.
However, if I’m attending a session that clearly marked as sponsored & teaching me to use a consultants product or a sponsored lunch session at a SQL Saturday event, then I know what I’m getting. We’re careful when we run SQL Saturday Atlanta to indicate a sponsored session and to not allow marketing during a pre-con or regular session. At least we try to do the latter, I’m sure there are times we’re unsuccessful. Marketing should happen in the sponsor room, at a table.
Great point – so now let’s think about Ola Hallengren’s highly-rated, highly-attended session at the PASS Summit that covered his database maintenance scripts.
In your opinion, was that a marketing session?
I have no idea, I didn’t attend his session. Was he selling it? Was he selling his services?
Nope, explaining how his free tools work, just like we do.
Is this how PASS interprets those rules too? Do they (for whatever value of ‘they’ makes sense) think that sp_AskBrent® is a prohibited ‘company-branded branded product or service’? Just curious — no objection from me if people run other events that overlap with PASS.
Email the PASS Board and ask if you can give out xyz. $5 says they give it an Ok. Problem solved. If not … point out specific cases of hypocrisy and fight.
We did that two years ago, actually. Answer: no.
Sorry for the short reply – was on a webcast. Here’s the fuller details.
Several years ago, when I was working for Quest, Stuart Ainsworth came up with the great idea to do Twitter Bingo cards. It would encourage attendees to meet various speakers and get them active in the community. I thought it was genius, and got Quest to offer to print them up for free for Stuart.
PASS informed us that we would have to pay PASS for the privilege of doing that. (Even though Quest was already a sponsor with a booth -we were told we had to pay extra for every individual thing we wanted to hand out, even if it was Stuart’s stuff.)
Two years ago, during our Summit pre-con, we wanted to give away free recorded versions of the session to all attendees. Not charge them – GIVE it away. PASS told us no, we would have to pay to do that.
To each his own. I think you’re decision is fine, and nothing wrong with it. The PASS restrictions seem a bit heavy handed, but they have a right to try to earn all the $$ and run the event their way.
Best of luck, with the pre-con and hope it goes well. I may try to swing by.
Thanks sir! I’d always love to see you there – just come on in if you’re in the area.
I do totally agree that PASS has the right to set their own restrictions, and I don’t think the restrictions are unreasonable. I think the majority of pre-con presenters will be totally fine with those restrictions, and PASS will put on a great event, just like they always do. I don’t think $499 is too steep of a price given the high costs of convention centers, either. I think it’s just a good thing for attendees if there’s a variety of choices at different price points.
I tend to agree with you, even though I know there are those that disagree and don’t like you competing with PASS. I’m slightly torn, but I think some competition would be good for PASS.
If I get in early enough, I’ll come by. I may try to come late Mon and shorten the week, so we’ll see.
It’s funny, I see the “don’t compete” thing rooted very deeply in other communities where sharing knowledge is seen as helping your adversary. “I don’t want to share my inside tricks because someone else will steal my job,” that kind of thing.
I’ve always believed the SQL Server community is above that – we’re all about helping people do better, for as low cost as we can, ideally free. That’s what the community is to me.
Worth a longer conversation over a cocktail somewhere. Certainly there is some competition in here that you’re feeding off the Summit. Without which, your audience might be smaller. As I said, I tend to side more with you than others, but I see the argument.
Oh absolutely – it’s kinda like a tailgate party, and if I do a good enough job of it, people might want to go to the party even more than the game.
The next logical extension is keynotes. Attendees tell me over and over that they’ve grown accustomed to skipping the conference keynotes because they’re boring marketing spam. There’s a perfect hole there to fill – like Cars & Coffee, but maybe Donuts & Databases instead, or an alternative keynote offsite but within walking distance.
Brent, thanks for all you have done and still doing for the SQL community. As you said Pass has the right to set their own restrictions. I like what you’re trying to do and I will do my best to be one of your attendees in your previous con session. Good luck
Moe – thanks sir!
Sorry i meant Pre Con session
Attended a Varigence BIML one day seminar when PASS was in Charlotte. The price was right, the content was pretty good, and it was worth seeing their big product to get all of the tips about BIML. It helped that it was significantly less expensive than the official pre-cons as I could pay for that out of my own pocket.
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