Summer is beginning, school is almost out here so that means it’s time to start preparing for my favorite time of the year, the VMware Explore conferences! In the past, I’ve always gone to Barcelona because it’s the closest to Belgium. This year I decided to change things up and also attend Explore in Las Vegas.

In this post, I will go through some of the top reasons why you should attend the Explore conference.

Community

Anyone that knows me will have guessed this would be my top reason. As a VMUG leader and vExpert, community is very important to me. Explore is the best place to grow your community network and engage with peers from the different communities that exist. As always, the communities area in The Hub will be the best place to hang out and meet others from the community. It’s also the place where you can usually find Corey, Franky and many others.

If you see someone sitting at a table, just go out and talk to them, you’ll be amazed of how friendly everyone is!

Learning

A big part of Explore is the sessions. While the sessions themselves are an important part of the conference, I think they’re a gateway into something more valuable. During the Q&A part of the session you can ask any question you have about the topic, which I think is invaluable! If you’re a bit anxious about asking the question in front of a group, a lot of the speakers will gladly talk to you afterwards so you can ask your question 1 on 1.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention this. What started as a bit of a joke between me and Evert, turned into a reality. Evert and I will be presenting our legendary session from the VMUG BE UserCon 2023 at Explore in Vegas, in the {Code} theater. Make sure to search for CODE1840LV or use this link to the session, and put it on your schedule!

Presenting at VMware Explore has been a huge bucketlist item for me for a long time, I’m more than excited to have gotten this opportunity!

Hands on Labs

This is probably my second favorite place to hang out during the conference, or well the Odyssey competition area at least! Like every year, the HoL folks put together a friendly competition that runs over the course of the conference. You get the chance to put your skills to the test in different topics, and if you score well enough you can participate in the finals to win cool prizes!

The HoL area itself is also a great place to get your hands dirty with all the different things VMware has to offer, if you get stuck or have questions, the lab team is there to assist you with any and all questions! If you want some more guidance, there are also a lot of expert led HoL sessions, make sure to check them out in the content catalogue.

Registration

Now that you’re convinced, you will want to order your ticket right away! You can grab your ticket here . You can still make use of the discounted ticket price, if you purchase your ticket before July 15th.

Hope to see you there!