This morning me and my colleagues had a good breakfast and got ourselves a cab to to the VMworld Europe 2019 venue, the Fira Barcelona. The venue set-up looked the same as last year except for the updated style on the billboards, logo’s and t-shirts. That’s a good thing, it means a bit less of “trying to find my way through the labyrinth!”
Registration and Materials Pickup
Just like other years, first thing to do was registering at the event venue. It was quite nice, couldn’t find any queues, quick QR code scan and badge print, done!
Little further down the registration area I was able to pick up the new VMworld 2019 backpack, to my surprise we also got a nice (water)bottle, thinking about the environmental footprint and all, and a T-shirt of which the XL sizes were magically missing.
VMvillage
After registering I explored some parts of VMvillage to see what was around. All the usual area’s were there like the Alumni Lounge, Partner Lounge, VMware Champions, {code}, Assessment and Store.
I dropped by to give some partner feedback together with my colleagues and got a nice re-usable straw, again thinking about the environmental footprint. I can see a trend here.
General Session Area
Right down the hallway to the area where the keynotes will take place I took a nice picture of all the LED lights. It really does light up the complete hall and there was a dedicated DJ stand for some nice music.
Haven’t really found a place where to make my mark yet, but I’m sure that will happen sooner or later. It’s clear that this VMworld is all about making your mark, everywhere.
Workshop: Run Kubernetes on VMware
After strolling around the venue, it was time to get into the first session, Run Kubernetes on VMware. It’s actually one of the few actual worksops this year, it was fully booked within 15 minutes of registrations opening up. Luckily I was able to secure my spot. Workshops are generally 4 hour long sessions with labs and real world examples. If you are planning for next year, be sure to go to one of these sessions, don’t forget to bring your laptop!
The session contents will be shared at a later time with some nice extra’s on my blog, as the current session was hosted on AWS I will try to make it an on-premise explanation for your lab tests. 
Environmental footprint
As you might have noticed throughout this post, I’ve mentioned environmental footprint a few times. Some of you may or may not know that VMware has been working extremely hard in neutralizing their carbon footprint. Last year it was evident during the keynote that VMware is trying to go all the way in being completely neutral and environment friendly. After seeing paper disappear last year, this year there are no straws or single use cups (exception coffee/tea), most paper has been removed throughout the venue and all trash is now being separated into plastic, paper, organic and other trash.
All done
All that’s left today is some chats with other partners and customers. After that it’s time to get some food and be back tomorrow for a day full of sessions with latest tech like Quantum, Pacific, ML and AI. As a bonus we will see Bear Grylls in the flesh, on stage during the keynote.