AWS Re:Invent 2018 - Top Tips
AWS Re:Invent , AWS’ annual week-long party/conference, can be an challenging week if you aren’t prepared properly. Every year the number of people that descends on Las Vegas, Nevada reaches eye-watering numbers; this year there were over 53,000 attendees and over 2,000 technical sessions. Re:Invent 2018 was the first year I attended and I was lucky enough to be accompanied by colleagues who had attended previous years and were able to provide me with some really good advice. I’ve noticed quite a few people on various social platforms such as Reddit and Twitter have struggled with Re:Invent and were sometimes left disappointed, so I thought I’d turn the advice given to me into a blog post.
Travelling between venues
You can’t truly appreciate the scale of AWS Re:Invent until you are there. The conference spans 2.5 miles of the Las Vegas strip from the Encore down to the MGM Grand . Google Maps thinks you can walk this in 50 minutes but when you are trying to fight your way through 53,000 people I’d be pleased if I could do it in less than an hour. Helpfully, AWS puts on free shuttles during the week which, if you make good use of, should mean you won’t miss that session you were really looking forward too. Don’t forget to make sure you follow AWS’ guidelines and ensure you are present at least 10 minutes before a talk begins; one of my colleagues was turned away from a session (that they had a reserved seat for) despite being 5 minutes early.
Types of talks
There are a wide variety of experiences and talks available at Re:Invent. I didn’t get to any of the boot camps or workshops (instead focusing on Sessions , Chalk Talks and EBCs) so I can’t really speak for them. What I can say, however, is that the format for Chalk Talks is excellent. Chalk Talks are much more interactive than the traditional lecture format of Sessions - allowing true, detailed technical discussions to take place. One key difference between Sessions and Chalk Talks is that every Session is recorded and up on the AWS YouTube channel within 24 hours. Chalk Talks, on the other hand, are not recorded at all - so if you want to see one, the only way to do it is in person.
Make the most of networking events
One of the things that attracted me to Re:Invent is the amount of people attending. There’s 53,000 people congregating in Vegas for the conference and AWS does a great job at providing networking events (such as the pub crawl ). The Pub Crawl in 2018 dedicated different venues with different topics, allowing you to network with people interested in a particular technology choice (such as Serverless) over some free food and drinks.
Other ideas
If you’ve got any thoughts or tips or your own then please let me know! You can find me on @AlexChesters or email me at alex@cheste.rs .