TechEd Secrets #1: Häagen-Dazs

Time to reveal some of the most secrets facts about TechEd.  If you are going to TechEd for the first time, make sure to read these insiders tips, they will make you look like you attended TechEd for at least the last 20 years.  However, don't spread the word, it's a secret!

TechEd Secret #1
The mysterious disappearing Häagen-Dazs ice-cream bars

A alumni know that there are Häagen-Dazs ice-cream bars in the afternoon at TechEd.  Not only that, he also knows that there are about only 1000 of them.  That's not bad you might say but do you know that there are about 14000 people at TechEd?  So in the afternoon break, you see attendees with Häagen-Dazs all around you and of course, you want one.  Hey, it's free!  Free Häagen-Dazs?  I want one.  So you go to the frozen food carts located all around the convention center and there's not a single Häagen-Dazs to be found, only frozen fruit bars.  Each day, the same ritual repeats: people eating Häagen-Dazs and not you, you're stuck with fruit bars!  BTW, the same fruit bars are following us from TechEd to TechEd because no one eats them.

Here is the secret: in the afternoon, right in the middle of a session, convention center employees take the carts away to fill them with frozen goods.  Wise attendees listening to some talks do not sit in the room, they stand right before the door making sure it's stays open just a little so they can see the convention center employee returning back with a cart full of frozen fruit bars and about a dozen Häagen-Dazs.  At this point, the employee is being followed by about 50 attendees and he his pushing hard on the cart.  Basically, he his running for his life!  In a frantic move, he leave the cart in it's spot and leave the scene.  What follows next is very graphical: attendees fighting for some Häagen-Dazs.  It's ugly.  At the same time, the afternoon sessions end and you go straight to the frozen food carts while watching people eating Häagen-Dazs.  Guess what's left in the carts?  FRUIT BARS!!!

So now you know how to get Häagen-Dazs but please, don't spread the word  ;-)

(Richard Campbell and I had so much fun with that running gag last year.  He even bought a dozen of Häagen-Dazs bars to give away at his SQL Server session.  Maybe he will do it again this year.)