Some people really want to get together, others want or need to stay apart from big gatherings for a while. We still want everyone to be able to access the unique experience that is SQLBits so you can meet us in Newport (Wales), or you can be with us over a remote connection – the choice is yours, the content is still going to be the absolute top quality from the best speakers in the world of data.

Yes. The dates of SQLBits Dungeon & Dragons Hybrid event are Tuesday 14th - Saturday 18th March 2023.

Yes, our event platform includes chat lounges, networking and sponsor areas for you enjoy throughout the conference. We had great feedback about the virtual experience in 2020 and 2022 so we are bringing it back in 2023 with a magical twist!

All virtual attendees get a 30% discount, which is applied at checkout!

Yes you will be able to change from in-person to virtual, but you do need to log a ticket with our helpdesk to process this for you. (contactus@sqlbits.com)

If you did change, then you'd get a refund for the difference so long as this is done more than 30 days before the event - see refund policy for other details

Any in-person registration will also get virtual access, so yes if you register as in-person you can attend some days in-person, and some virtually if you want. 

You can see all our Training day sessions here! 

Our general sessions agenda is available here

Yes, we’re planning our usual curry and pub quiz on the Thursday night and our world-famous party returns on Friday night!

We encourage you to dress according to our spectacular D&D theme and to bring your family and friends along!

We’re still monitoring the COVID-19 situation carefully and will do everything we can to keep the event as safe as possible.

Yes. We offer a 5% discount.

Please provide us with your user group or meetup name, and the leader’s email address to contactus@sqlbits.com, and we’ll mail out a discount code to them, which they can distribute. 

Of course!

Please email us at sponsors@sqlbits.com for more details of how you can support the event!

Yes, vegetarian, vegan, gluten free or similar requests can be made when you register.

We will work with the venue to try and accommodate your requirements, but regret that this may not always be possible.

Special requests must be made during registration, at least 7 days before the event starts.

Of course! We love to have help from people enthusiastic to support the SQL Community. 

Please complete this form to get on our mailing list and we will get in touch when we are planning the helper coordination for the next SQLBits, or email us at helpers@sqlbits.com

The recordings of the general sessions (Thursday, Friday & Saturday) will be uploaded to YouTube/Website in June 2023, if you paid for a ticket you can find all the content available on Canapii for 3 months from the end of SQLBits!

Processing over 250 hours of video does take considerable time and resources so we appreciate your patience.

Please note that training day sessions (Tuesday and Wednesday) are not recorded, but are available for our paying attendees only on Canapii too.

The speaker slides should be available shortly after the event, however not all speakers have permission/want to upload their slides. So we cannot guarantee they will all be available for you to revisit. 

We are still working on this, they are coming soon!

Unfortunately we’re not able to provide a certificate of attendance, as we do not log what you attend during the event.

We are constantly reviewing government advice and regulations, as well as following all the steps our venue has to offer. Your health, safety, and comfort has been, and continues to be, our number one priority.

We will be providing for attendees, speakers and sponsors:

• The option to use a creche (childcare facilities) at the conference (FREE)
• Onsite therapist, providing an anonymous helpline number for you to use whether it be conference related or anything else you're struggling with, we just want you to be happy and comfortable at SQLBits.
• A multi-faith prayer room
• Community/Quiet zone
• A sign language interpreter
• Mobility aids

And many more options to help everyone feel included in our community. Feel free to get in touch if you have any queries, and we will do our best to accommodate. 

Virtual attendees get 30% off!

And, as always, Saturday 18th March 2023 is completely free for in-person and virtual attendance!

Please take a look at our pricing below:

At SQLBits we don't want anyone to feel excluded. If you would like to attend SQLBits but are struggling due to cost (This could be for any reasoning e.g. student, parent, carer - anything) please get in touch with our team at contactus@sqlbits.com and we can assess the ways we can help you attend SQLBits. 

We only accept credit cards. We do not accept purchase orders and invoices, due to the additional overhead required to process these payments. If you want to invoice, this comes with a fee.

If you have problems paying then please contact us!

You can pay online via credit card within the registration platform on our website. We only accept Visa, Mastercard, and Amex. You can download an invoice via your account and confirmation email. We do not accept payment in-person at the door or via cheque, sorry.

Registrations MUST be paid in FULL, at least 24 hours before the start of the event, or your registration will not be valid, and you will not be allowed in.

Early Bird discounts are based on the date that you pay, not on the date that you register. So ensure you pay in full, to get the early bird discounts. 

Yes, we are a VAT registered company providing services within the UK so we have to charge VAT at UK rates.

All fees are subject to UK VAT at 20%, even if you are registered for VAT within the EU, but outside of the UK.

Attending a SQLBits conference is classed as a supply of services, and the supply takes place within the UK, therefore UK VAT is chargeable for all attendees, regardless of their location.

We offer a 5% discount (which is automatically applied) for those who spend £2500 (before VAT), and a 10% discount for those groups who spend over £5000 (before VAT). Enjoy!

Please note that only a single discount can be used per person. You cannot add group discount on top of another discount code.

You only need to pre-book session selections for Tuesday and Wednesday, which are full day training days where you spend the whole day learning about a single topic in detail. These must be pre-booked at the time you register.

On Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday (general session days) you can choose which session you want to go to as and when you choose. Be sure to watch out for the popular sessions as room capacity is fixed and seats are taken on a first come, first served basis.

To swap/change training day sessions, please head to your confirmation email and click the link to modify your booking.

Sorry, sessions come at a first come, first served basis, so book early. Spaces may become available (so check daily) or you can join virtually.

Yes, you can pick and choose one or more days during registration.

Remember, the Saturday is totally free!

You are more than welcome to book through a training provider, but please note that doing so does not change any costs.

Please see the Contact Us page!

You will be able to amend you tickets by logging in using your email (username) and password which you created upon registering, in this portal you can change and adjust your booking. 

Our cancellation policy is, full refund up to 17th November 2022. Then up to 30 days before the event (18th Feb) we'll charge a 40% admin fee, with the remainder refunded. If you were to cancel within 30 days of the event (from 19th Feb), no refund will be available.

As SQLBits went ahead in 2022, in a hybrid format, all our attendees who had to move their 2020 tickets were told they had the choice to attend virtually or in-person for 2022. meaning those who couldn't travel due to COVID-19 could still attend, with the notice that 2020 tickets would not be carried over for our 2023 event. 

You can book the Coldra Court Hotel through SQLBits! The rate is £95.83 + VAT and is based on single occupancy and includes breakfast. Please note this is on a first-come, first-served basis as we only reserved a specific amount of rooms.

UPDATE: PLEASE NOTE Coldra Court has availability for our delegates on Mon 13, Tue 14, Wed 15, Fri 17 and Sat 18^th. If you use our code. It has no availability on Thursday 16^th

To secure your room, will have to book directly with the hotel and quote the following code prompt on the ‘Book Online’ tab on the home page: SQL130323.

To secure your room, go to 'Book now', under 'Discount Code Type', select 'Block Booking', and under 'Enter Code' enter SQL130323, otherwise, it says there are no rooms available automatically.

Alternatively, you can call 01633 413262 to book directly from this allocation. At the time of booking, guests will be required to make a full non-refundable, and non-transferable payment for rooms.

This is a 20minute walk from the ICC Wales (SQLBits venue) or a 4 minute drive. We will be providing a free shuttle service; scroll down for more details.

Hotel rooms cannot be booked through SQLBits and our registration platform unless you are a confirmed speaker. 

If you are not a speaker, please book your hotel room through your favourite hotel booking website.
The closest hotels to the venue are:

• Celtic Manor
• IHG Holiday Inn Newport (0.5 miles)
• Premier Inn, Newport (0.8 miles)
• Coldra Court, Newport (0.9 miles)

SQLBits plans on providing a free shuttle bus from Tuesday 14th to Saturday 18th March to/from the three hotels above that are not on the Celtic Manor site. The bus will also run from Newport Train Station too, so please feel free to book hotels further afield in Cardiff etc and come in on the train each day.

The rules around travelling into England are changing frequently so please keep reviewing the information provided by UK Government. If you are travelling into an airport outside England you will need to locate the regulations for that particular location (England/Northern Ireland/Scotland/Wales details).

To get your discounted train ticket please visit - https://www.gwr.com/your-tickets/ways-to-save/business-travel/conferences-and-events

Some examples include:

Standard Return example (London Paddington – Newport) – £42 per person

First Class Return example (London Paddington – Newport) – £86 per person

Please be aware that these train tickets will be valid only with proof of attendance at a conference. Tickets can be booked up to 3 months in advance, subject to availability, one ticket at a time.

1. Once you have clicked the link please select 'Newport' from the booking list, this will redirect you to a page where you can make a booking to 'Newport Conference'. 
2. The next step is to input your details such as one way or return journey and what date/time you'd like to depart and return
3. Please note that you will potentially have to show the ticket officer your conference booking to get on the train. Your confirmation email should be fine for this and tell them SQLBits is at the ICC Wales!

We will also be running a free shuttle bus from Newport Station routinely, times are currently TBD.

UPDATE: Please don't forget the planned train strikes may affect your journey.

Unfortunately we’re only able to send visa invitation letters to speakers, not to attendees.

If you book and pay for your ticket, then you’ll be able to use your registration confirmation email for your visa application!

From Tuesday 14th to Saturday 18th March there will be a free shuttle bus running the following routes and times. A traffic marshal and bus stop sign will be at all the stops.

Route One - Outlying hotels and the ICC

• The Holiday Inn - coach bay is outside reception and look right
• The Premier Inn - the coach will be parked outside reception
• Coldra Court - the coach will be parked outside reception
• The bus will run on a loop between the above three hotels and the ICC reception

Route Two - Newport Train Station and the ICC 

• Newport Train Station and hotels in town – coaches will be parked on Queensway
• This bus will shuttle between Queensway and the ICC reception

(There are numerous bus stops on Queensway, so please look out for our traffic marshal and either a green Mainline Coach or a white Watkins coach.)

Buses will run between the following times:  

Tuesday:                                          07:00 - 09:00 and 17:00 - 18:30

Wednesday:                                     07:00 - 09:00, 17:00 - 19:30 and 21:30 - 23:00

Thursday:                                         07:00 - 09:00, 17:00 - 20:00 and 22:00 - 23:30

Friday:                                               07:00 - 09:00 and 17:00 - 01:00

Saturday:                                          07:30 - 09:30 and 15:00 - 18:00

There is no limit on how many sessions you can submit, so keep submitting until you've ran out of ideas!

We aim to provide as much support as is possible for all speakers and for speakers new to SQLBits. We can even help partner you up with as more experienced speaker to help raise your confidence, or perhaps a mentee. For more information take a look at our speaker guidance!

As in 2022, we are using Sessionize to hold our Call for Speakers. You can submit my following the appropriate links in our Speaker Guidance (please read the guidance before submitting a session - it's important!)

General sessions submission deadline is at 10:00pm (GMT) on October 28th 2022.

Training Day session submission deadline is 10:00pm (GMT) on October 17th 2022. 

It takes a few weeks to collate all the feedback from attendees, but we hope to get these published to our speakers as a priority!

Our call for speakers is currently CLOSED, to take a look at our speaker guidance to prepare yourself to submit a session - click here!  We have talks on various subjects covering Microsoft data technologies, including SQL Server, Azure, Big Data, Power BI, Machine Learning, and soft skills. 

At SQLBits we aim to support our speakers and ensure to make it as easy as possible to attend our event. To do this we will be offering to all our speakers:

• The option to use a creche (childcare facilities) at the conference
• Onsite therapist and providing an anonymous helpline number, this could be personal issues you're struggling with or anything conference related, we just want you to be happy and comfortable at SQLBits.
• A multi-faith prayer room
• Speaker room/quiet zone
• A sign language interpreter
• Mobility aids
• Finance support 

And many more options, feel free to get in touch and we will do our best to accommodate.