I think there is at least one moment during each of my previous PASS Summits where I gain at least one piece of technical knowledge that I can immediately apply to a specific scenario. This was especially true back when I was still a production DBA and kept chained to my cubicle desk and tasked with solving issues that arrived in emails that had but an error message and the words “please fix” attached inline. I simply had a lot of different scenarios in play at any given time, which would drive me to attend certain sessions, and ultimately would lead me to a piece of knowledge that I could apply right away.
In 2009 I was fortunate to not only have the happen multiple times, but also to take a couple of the lessons learned and apply them together. The end result was this article over at Simple-Talk. (And yes, I am aware now that there would be an easier way to get this done…go gentle on me, it was my first real POSH experience.)
Anyway, the point here is about all the time I would walk away from a session at the PASS Summit and immediately be able to apply that knowledge. Time and time again, the PASS Summit would pay for itself, often many times over.