Last Friday I presented at the Stir Trek event held in Columbus, Ohio. This event was by far one of the best local events I’ve been a part of, and I’m eagerly looking forward to a similar event already scheduled for next year. You can learn more about it at its web site, but the event’s primary goal was to provide local developers with content that was presented at MIX09. My talk was on What’s New in ASP.NET 4.0, and I got a lot of positive feedback on the presentation. I’ve sent my slides and demos to the organizers of the event, so I’m sure they’ll make their way onto the official site somewhere, but if you need them you can grab them here:

SteveSmith_WhatsNewASPNET4.zip

The event was held in a movie theater, with two tracks (so, two theaters), one focusing on UX / Silverlight and the other focusing on Web. There were a bunch of great speakers including Tim Heuer who flew in from AZ to give a couple of Silverlight talks, and many local speakers. The event was sponsored by a bunch of great local companies and component vendors, and there were tons of prizes to be given away at the end of the day. The event culminated in a private screening of the new Star Trek movie (hence the name), which did not disappoint. I was very impressed with the movie and am looking forward to seeing it again.

Everybody I talked to said this was one of the best events they’d been to in terms of the logistics. Everything flowed smoothly, from the registration to the prizes, and while I know there were some last-minute issues that the event staff needed to deal with, the attendees for the most part never knew anything was amiss. I know putting something like this is a lot of hard work and I just want to give a big Thank You to the folks who pulled it off. You did great.

Next year, the event is likely to be held at the same venue (Crosswoods Theater) and will coincide with the release of Iron Man 2. I can’t wait.