Upstaged by Barbarella and her sisters

Last week, I did a presentation at the Dutch Business Objects user conference in Amsterdam. I was surprised by the large number of attendees (over 400) for a country-specific gathering, but I was more surprised by the liberal attitude of this corporate event. Now, the "Oranje" always had a reputation for taking themselves not so serious, but outside the Netherlands this would be probably considered a faux-pas. Between the country manager, who did his intro speech, and myself, four girls in pink tights and "Madonna bras" (don't know what to call these devices otherwise) and platinum-blond wigs entered the stage with loud whistling and drumming. For 15 minutes, a deafening noise stunned the audience (myself included) from the beating on drums and barrels, supported by a blasting PA, fire breathing, and flying sparks from angle grinders.

"And now for something completely different..." Kinda hard to talk about the business intelligence market after that performance. However, on the positive side, I didn't have anybody sleeping during my pitch...