Although I said it many times during the day, it would be remiss of me not to mention how much support we received from the WebDD Sponsors. To start with Microsoft hosted the event, provided the staff to run it on the day, the food and drinks, and generally made everything work smoothly. Thanks go to Clare for arranging all of that. Microsoft also gave away some Expression branded graphics tables.
Then we have the list of comapnies providing gifts for Prizes:
- Madgex, whose Glen Jones was not only a speaker, but wrote the Backnetwork.
- Telerik not only supplied two speakers (not that they wre prizes mind you), but also a huge number of T-Shirts and 10 copies of their Rad Controls for the prize draw.
- Red Gate, who generously provided a bar tab, enabling us to finish a great day on a great high. Red Gate are recruiting at the moment and who wouldn't want to work for a company that buys beer?
- Developer Express gave us a DXperience Enterprise Subscription, which is an awesome prize. I use Code Rush and Refactor and love them, and they've just released a beta for Refactor! for ASP.NET, which I'll be installing as soon as I can.
- Component Art supplied a copy of their Web.UI subscription. I've used the Component Art tools in the past and thtey rock.
- Wrox Press, O'Reilly, Friends of Ed, Addison-Wesley and SAMS all supplied books (and T-Shirts in some cases) for our prize draw. One person won a book that he'd bought at the bookstore a few hours previously, so he's either going to have a lucky friend, or they'll be a copy going on ebay soon 8)
All in all, the range of prizes was awesome, especially considering this is a free event. So sponsors, I salute you and thank you for you generous support.