The Microsoft Tech Ed (Australia) conference is being held at the Gold Coast Exhibition & Convention Centre from August 24-27, less than a month away now. 

There’s a flurry of activity with people preparing for prezzo’s, and studying for exams (me !), as well as the venue preparation, and attendee’s grabbing tickets, and sorting out flight & accommodation details. 

[ if you haven’t got your ticket, you’d better get a move on ! ]

The session catalog has been posted – there’s lots of great topics (still not sure on the “schedule” as yet) – will be a hard choice to pick what to see – and I’ll have to slot in some certification exams as well (they’re only $50 at TechEd !   Reduced from $180 !)

One thing about TechEd that always surprises me is the people, more so than the technology – I seriously under-estimated the ‘networking’ aspects of the Microsoft partner & customer community.  I’ve met sooo many great people, and have a lot of new friends in the same industry.

The “SharePoint community” is very active within Australia – with recent SharePoint Saturdays, the SharePoint Conference in Sydney, SharePointDevWiki, countless user groups, and the simultaneous rolling launch party to celebrate the new SharePoint, Office & Project 2010 product lines.

It would make sense that there’s a bunch of the same “usual suspects” heading along to TechEd.

So, I’ve been talking to some of the local SharePoint MVP’s about getting together for a SharePint evening.

This will simply be a ‘gathering’ at a pub/bar – sorry, there won’t be any free food, or drinks – although we might be able to rustle up some prizes & giveaways – more to come, as we work it out.

UPDATE : We now have an XBox-360 to give-away – thanks to AvePoint.  

See here for details – and how to win.

UPDATE (again) : Thanks to OBS and Aptimize, we’ll have some FREE DRINKS – see here for details.

There’s sure to be a lot of chit-chat about the sessions – and you should get a chance to ask some questions from the presenters, if you missed out on asking at the end of the session. 

And, I’m sure there will be lots of interesting conversation, Q&A and debate – and a few beers, or course.

Here’s the details you need to know :

• Date : Wed August 25th, 2010
• Time : anytime from 7~8pm onwards (till late) – there’s a restaurant and bar food, or you may like to grab dinner elsewhere, and then wander over when you want.
• Location : Moo Moo Wine Bar & Grill

Here’s a quick map to guide you – if you get lost on the way there, you probably don’t deserve to come !

Hope you can make it along to meet-up and chat all things SharePoint (and don’t forget Office & Project too !)

Even if you’re NOT at TechEd to see/hear about SharePoint, you’re most welcome to come and just hang out with some friendly like-minded I.T. nerds.

** To give us an ‘idea’ about the number of people to expect, please RSVP by leaving a comment on this post – or contact me @GrumpyWookie.

And pls. tell everyone about it – via Twitter, FaceBook, blogs, etc…    See you at Tech Ed !

:-)