PGSQL Phriday #014: Postgres Events!

For this PGSQL Phriday, Pavlo Golub has chosen the topic “POSTGRESQL EVENTS”

What a topic! Do you know how many things I can say about Postgres events? A lot! Last spring, I published the blog post “Complete History of PG Day Chicago”, which included the story of my involvement with the Chicago PostgreSQLUser Group. In December 2016, seven years ago, when I became a Chicago PUG local organizer, my goal was to prove that Chicago could host a conference, but I realized very soon that the User Group was vital for the Postgres community regardless.

Like no other community, the Postgres community needs live interactions, and I can’t recall anybody more unhappy than frequent conference speakers at the time of the pandemic.

One time, I will give a talk, “How we survived the pandemic,” but today, all my thoughts are directed to the second PG Day Chicago, which will take place on April 26, 2024. If you are coming to PG Conf EU, which starts in just ten days, you will have a chance to listen to the talk that I will give together with Teresa Giacomini: So you want a PG day in your city, where we will share our many “lessons learned”.

For now, I just want to repost my Complete History of PG Day Chicago (because nobody clicks on the links!)

I felt compelled to write a blog explaining why I am so excited for PG Day Chicago finally being a reality, not just my dream. Many people heard at least some parts of this story, but it’s the first time I am presenting the whole timeline.

I started working with PostgreSQL in July 2011, and shortly after, I attended the first Postgres conference, PG Open, which was back then happening in Chicago and was a three-day event with huge attendance! Before that, I only attended academic conferences, and that one looked very different. Needless to say, in addition to its novelty, I felt completely stupid because I barely understood what it was all about. I had enough courage to ask somebody (maybe even Magnus) whether they plan to have subtransactions inside functions :)).

I attended the next PG Open, and I also went to Ottawa for PG Conf, and gradually, I stopped feeling completely stupid, but I was still a “nobody.” And then, in 2013, I submitted the talk proposal to PG Open, which was accepted!

I posted the first entry of this blog after PG Open 2013. Interestingly, I said nothing about my own talk: I felt that it was entirely unimportant in comparison with others’ talks! Then my talk was accepted for 2014, and also, a strange thing happened: I came to register and realized that everybody knew me! I could not understand how it happened! Still, I felt like Postgres conferences were “not real” and tried to submit to “real” conferences, meaning the academic ones. (I had two acceptances and two papers published, one in 2014 and another in 2016, but that’s a different story).

And then, a horrible thing happened: PG Open was moved from Chicago to Dallas! I enjoyed every moment on it, and I have a whole bunch of blog posts about it (one, two, and three, and actually, I forgot that it was the first time I learned about FDW), but I also remember being extremely upset about this move to Dallas! And whatever Steve Frost is saying now about this move, I remember very well what he said back then: there is nobody left in Chicago to do the conference! Yes, some dramatic events were happening at that time, but I felt offended that the fact that three people left meant that “there was nobody!”

Then came PG Open 2016, again in Dallas, and that’s when I presented pg_bitemporal for the first time and met many new people (one, two, and three). And since by that time, “everybody knew me,” and I even managed to organize an impromptu after-party, I felt brave enough to ask Steve whether we could have PG Open back in Chicago. He asked me: how is Chicago PUG doing? I replied: pretty much not doing anything, barely alive. He said: see, there are 250 PUG members in Dallas! How can we have PG Open in Chicago when there is nobody to come? Give me your PUG first, and then we’ll talk! I said: OK! I will give you Chicago PUG!

I returned back to Chicago (and for the context, I was at Braviant for just five months) and asked our leadership team whether we could host Chicago PUG. They said: yes, starting in January. I called the then-organizer of Chicago PUG and invited him for lunch. When we met, I asked him in a very straightforward way whether he wanted to give me the reign :). He said that I was an answer to his prayers because he was not charismatic, and I was 😀, and we decided to complete a transition within the next three months.

My first meetup was in January 2017, and the number of people who showed up was three times more than in November! (actually, more people than RSVPs!)

PG Open 2017 was in San Francisco, and I asked Steve Frost: Do you remember what you told me a year ago? He said: Of course not! I told him: you said that if I give you Chicago PUG, you will give Chicago a conference! Did you hear how Chicago PUG is doing these days?! He replied: Oh, yes!!! But still, PG Open didn’t go to Chicago!

Instead, PG Open 2018 was in Dallas again, and once again, I enjoyed it a lot, and we presented a “pre-version” of NORM, but Chicago was still not in the picture! Thankfully, 2ndQuadrant started to hold their conferences in Chicago, and I enthusiastically helped them, but it was still not a true community conference. I Dallas, I talked with several community members (I am not pointing fingers at the moment:)) who said they would help me to organize a Chicago-based conference, but once again, nothing happened, regardless of how hard I championed this idea.

Then came 2019. I submitted a tutorial proposal, and it was put on the reserve list, and the organizers asked me whether I would attend. The problem was that by that time, I already knew that I was a finalist for the Illinois Technologist of the Year Award. If my talk was accepted, I would still fly in for just a day to deliver it, but being on reserve and having the final happening on the same week, I didn’t feel like it would be a wise idea to fly for just one day.

Since I could not tell the real reason for declining, the PC thought that I was obnoxious, and they stopped talking to me, and nobody even mentioned my award at the conference (I thought that it would be cool to mention it in connection with Postgres, but…)

And then, Magnus and Devrim came to Chicago in December 2019, and I asked them to present at Chicago PUG (we had a record attendance!), and I took them to Zbar in Peninsula, and I finally got Magnus’ blessings to start preparing to PG Day Chicago! During January and February 2020, we had endless conversations with Stacey Haysler, during which she patiently explained to me how I was doing everything wrong, and then… everybody knows what happened! Or rather, what didn’t happen!

Nothing was happening until May 2022, when Steve Frost was in Chicago, and I got a chance to meet with him. I said that I still wanted PG Day Chicago to happen, but I have nobody to help me, and I do not have a team anymore, so without help, nothing would happen.

And then – everything happened! And now, I do not even want to describe all my fears and what went wrong. Now you know what a long journey it was, and why I am so thankful to Magnus Hagander, Steve Frost, Pg.Us Board for making my dreams a reality, DRW for letting me do community activities, and everybody who contributed to PG Day Chicago in all possible ways!!