I had a blast and learned a lot. To say that it was worth the money isn't even close.

I took about 10 pages of notes. And for anyone unsure of how to document the event, I wouldn't bother with a laptop or audio, notes should do you fine - and I am NOT the world's best note-taker.

Thanks for the comments, guys! It was a great time, no doubt. John, great seeing you again, dmcknight, was great finally meeting you and the other vegheads of Dallas. You guys are big enough, you might wanna start a users group down there!
Congrats to Rocky for winning the AMD processor!
Now I"m in Phoenix where it's still hot, but there's no humidity. Then to Seattle, where it's cool and humid. Dang, this is SO bad on my skin. :-)
We're having fun out here, thanks to all for making it so!

Dallas went as planned....except for the unexpected fire drill !!

Great to meet everyone there :-)

Gary

Wait till you come to Atlanta Hot and Humid,, did I say hot.

It ain't hot in phoenix this week. You go lucky - temps are moderate.

See you tomorrow.

I CAN go to Seattle this Friday.
but really folks...is this worth the price of admission? I got Friday off and considering taking my 16 year old Solid Works Wizard son but that's a big chunk for a non-corporate type. This really worth it? There's no doubt I'm inefficient. There's no doubt I could use it better. The question: is this essential stuff? Anybody attend the training? How does it compare to the DVD self training set that's available (thought it was a DVD) I could put the downpayment for a set of good speakers instead. Wife just gave me that Quid Pro Quo look.....GIVE ME AN EXCUSE. Do I Want to spend my day off in class.

Good question, re: comparing to the DVD. I have the Class On Demand dvd set for Vegas 4, and I went to the dallas training (I'm from Houston).

To get to specifics...

1. I heard about 4 or 5 truly usable tips before the first morning break...and they just kept coming.
2. The experience of seeing Spot demo, use, and create - not from a canned veg file, but from scratch - what is that worth to you? And I'm talking about the (to me) more complex pieces like compositing, nested relationships. And then a full ACID-inside-Vegas demo..from scratch

btw...Spot...the girl wasn't saying "Give it up"...she was saying "Get it up".....what was the name of that loop set again? :)

3. Getting a personalized agenda - at one point early on they said "what do you all want to get out of this day?" Everyone, and I mean everyone mentioned something - and I'm pretty sure all bases were covered.
4. The swag and door prizes. I gotta say it. Most of it is good, some is great, and it all has value. I won a SonyFo backgounds collection that I will use, and is worth what - $100?

All I can say is, imagine a constant wave of information flowing from the front of the room to the back. You may not be interested in all of it, or be able to absorb all of it, but I'm pretty sure most users would find a few nuggets that would make them laugh out loud at the discovery, as in "I didn't know it could do that" You get 8 hours of that. And then you'll STILL want to buy the DVD. Kinda like going to a concert and buying the live record!

Any other attendees feel differently or similar?

<edit> btw, I'm not a corp. type - I paid for this investment myself.

funny, I thought I posted this already...
Seattle, Friday, is this worth it? Anyone with experience with the training? I could use a little help sure but

I gotta get off the night shift...sorry
As you were saying....

Well, glad everyone had such a blast, guess I'll just have to wait 'til they swing back by again.

Hey Spot, how about Austin next time?!?

Marc

Dmcknight,
That was from the MacMoney Voices From the Black Box ACID library. One of my faves....I'm not commenting on what she's saying :-)
Phoenix was REALLY fun today, I was shocked to see that we needed extra chairs as Phoenix is a second time stop for VASST, and first for the Vegas group.
Tomorrow is the full training day at a recording studio, so it's a slightly different setup than we've ever had before. Looking forward to seeing more of you there. Dang, but it's HOT in PHX.

> Any other attendees feel differently or similar?

I had the same experience at the NYC VASST training. Just watching Spot work will teach you something you can’t get from just reading the manual. You get to learn his workflow and that alone has made me more productive. Being able to ask questions and control the flow of the day is also a benefit. Basically Spot can take it wherever you want to go and the training is somewhat customized to the interests of the crowd that day. You can’t ask for more than that. I was really glad I went.

~jr