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2020 was supposed to be an exciting year for those of us attending the PASS Summit. After years of being held in Seattle, they had outgrown the venue. This year, they were making a move to Houston, and we were looking forward to seeing everyone in the #SQLFamily at the new venue. And then 2020 happened. And the venue changed again. Only this time, it changed from Houston to our living rooms. That change brought with it both strange and exciting modifications. Having all the sessions pre-recorded instead of live: STRANGE. Being able to rewind to catch what you missed during a session: EXCITING! Attending remotely from our houses and not being able to mingle with like-minded data folks: STRANGE. Being able to live chat with presenters during their sessions without interrupting the presentation: EXCITING!

In the end, we all enjoyed the conference. Over the three days of the conference, we learned a ton. Everything from Azure Data Factory and SSIS to Azure SQL Hyperscale and SQL Server on prem. And the best part is that EVERY session was recorded, and we get access to all of them for the following year. When was the last time you got to see EVERY session at a conference??

And then (because 2020, of course!) in the month after the conference, multiple PASS board members resigned abruptly. The web has been buzzing about what is happening. Speculation is high that PASS is insolvent and planning on folding. This all leaves us wondering what this means for us as Summit attendees. Will we lose access to the sessions we were promised for the year? Will there be a Summit conference next year, or was this the last one? What about #SQLSaturday? And how about our local 605 SQL PASS user group? We are not sure what the answer is to any of these questions. We will continue to support our local group as best we can, and we are hopeful that SQLSaturday can continue even if the mothership does implode. For most of these questions, your guess is as good as ours. But the questions point out some important topics. The SQL community is not the PASS organization. Summit is not the only data conference. And this is not the only way to learn about data in the Microsoft space. If the organization disappears, the community will find a way to continue. And if the Summit ceases to exist, we will review options for the other national conferences. At the end of the day, we all want to learn. If we find ourselves on another learning path because of this, we look forward to these new adventures!