PASS Summiteers Guide to Charlotte, Part 1: The SQL Sentry Shuttle!

I’m extremely excited to announce a first for this, or any, PASS Summit:

SQL Sentry is providing a fleet of trolleys to take Summit attendees
to popular destinations in and around downtown Charlotte!

Why are we doing this?

• If it’s your first visit to Charlotte, you may not know where to go or what to do after the conference ends each day. We don’t think you should have to worry about such things after a long day of technical sessions. Just hop on the SQL Sentry Shuttle, and we’ll take care of the rest!
• Even if you do know where you are going, you still have to get there. Charlotte is a little different than Seattle and other cities in that some of the best areas are only a mile or two outside of downtown (aka, “uptown”), but not walkable. We wanted to make getting there as easy and as enjoyable as possible. Plus you’ll save a few bucks on cab fare!

Rest assured, we are not doing this because there just isn’t enough to do in downtown Charlotte. Quite the contrary, IMO there is plenty to keep one busy for the week, and I’ll cover this in an upcoming post. However, downtown is only one aspect of Charlotte. We want you to experience more of what our hometown has to offer, with hopes that you’ll depart with nothing but happy thoughts 😉

The Details

The trolleys will be running in a continuous circuit each evening to two three of the most popular nearby destinations: The NC Music Factory, Historic Brevard Court, and the NoDa (North Davidson) area.

UPDATE: The circuit is now a “figure 8” versus a straight loop, which will enable you to get to NoDa quicker if desired, versus having to go by EpiCentre and Music Factory first. There will be trolley stops on both sides of Martin Luther King Blvd. adjacent to the Convention Center. To visit the Music Factory first, simply board on the east side of the street. To visit NoDa first, board on the west side. Since all trolleys follow the same route, it’s no problem if you board the wrong one, it just may take a little longer to get to your desired destination 😉 There will also be signs and people directing.

• IMPORTANT: You will need to show your PASS Summit attendee badge in order to ride!
  Spouses and other immediate family can ride along with you.
• Cost: FREE!
• Times:
  • 7:30pm – 12:30am, on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights.
• Route Map
• Circuit stops:
  • (A) The Charlotte Convention Center (Music Factory first, east side of Martin Luther King Blvd.)
  • (B) The EpiCentre
  • (C) 6th and Tryon St. (near Holiday Inn)
  • (D) The NC Music Factory
  • (E) VBGB Beer Hall & Garden/Restaurant
  • (F) Church St. and Trade St. (near Marriot)
  • (G) Historic Brevard Court
  • (H) The Charlotte Convention Center (NoDa first, west side of Martin Luther King Blvd.)
  • (I) NoDa Center
  • (J) Birdsong Brewing
  • back to (A)
• A trolley should be by each stop every 10 minutes or so.
• Each trolley will hold up to 40 people, 24 seated and 16 standing.

More Info

You’ll be hearing more about the SQL Sentry Shuttle on the Summit website, in the Guidebook App, and in other conference materials. I’ll also be going into more detail about each destination area in some upcoming posts, so stay tuned!

Greg Gonzalez

Greg is founder and Chief Scientist at SentryOne. He is a Microsoft developer by background and has been working with SQL Server since the mid 90s. He is perpetually engaged in the design and development of SQL Sentry, Plan Explorer and other SentryOne solutions for optimizing performance on the Microsoft Data Platform.