San Francisco Launch Event Pictures

Some pictures that I took throughout the day on 11/7.

The first thing that you see when you arrived on the second floor was the big registration line.



After securing your pass, you are able to get past the tight security and enter the main convention hall. This is the first thing that I saw, which was coffee.



Another shot of the convention hall. Each vendor had a kiosk, which you can see behind this guy standing on one foot.



Here's the Ask-The-Experts area. Unlike Detroit's show, all of the experts were in one corral, so if there was a question that spanned both Visual Studio and SQL Server, then it was very easy to get a couple different experts together for consulting.



People are gathering for the keynote. Music was playing, slides and videos were being played on the screens to the side of the stage. VIP's were allowed to be seated in the front-most rows. (This shot was about 30 minutes before Ballmer took the stage, so most people were not seated yet).



The opening act: Cheap Trick!



Steve Ballmer takes the stage.



Here's a typical Cabana session. This one was on mobile development, and one lucky member of this crowd (who happens to be out of frame to the left) won a smart phone for wearing a Windows Mobile hat.



Here's the Hands-on Lab where people could try out the software.



These stretched Hummers kept delivering supplies, or at least every time that I saw one pull up, people took boxes out of them.



The post-event party continues here:

http://jasonf-blog.blogspot.com/2005/11/sfo-post-event-party.html