Event Chronicles: "Musings & Mischief": Pax8 - Above and 'Beyond' Expectations for Inaugural Event

Last week I had the pleasure of attending Pax8 's inaugural event, "Beyond," which was four years in the making thanks to COVID.

It was hosted in Denver (really Aurora) at a beautiful Gaylord Resort, conveniently located near the airport with some pretty amazing views of the Rocky Mountains.

Flying out of Denver is a completely different story; it's one of the worst airports from a line standpoint.

Disclaimer: I'm providing insight from my perspective; I don't have the opportunity to attend all of the educational breakouts, etc. I like to provide some insight with a bit of fun. For actual news coverage of the events, please check out Rich Freeman 's newsletter or ChannelE2E .

Here are some musings, observations, and recaps from my perspective.

1. Pax8 set the tone early; I honestly can't even describe how incredible the LED screen was; the picture above doesn't do it justice. I'm sure some folks have posted videos, so check it out. The intro video was phenomenally done by the video people at Pax8. It raised the energy and excitement in the room to another level.

2. Then, of course, they gave the people what they wanted, a Rob Rae appearance. This was his coming out party under the weight of many expectations. This was a heavy Rob crowd; I believe they crossed over 1,000 MSPs in attendance. With zero scientific evidence, at least 25% of this crowd showed up because of Rob, by my estimation.

3. Pax8 MSPs LOVE Pax8. That has been clear from all of the forums, but they proved it by being a big part of the success of this inaugural event.

4. Does anyone know just how many Pax8 partners there are? Just ask Nick Heddy ; the answer is 29,000+!! Nick has been there since the earliest days, and his reported numbers were unbelievable. (300,000+ end customers, 10M+ end users, 1 transaction every minute from Pax8 MSPs)

5. 13 New Vendors added to the Pax8 line card. I don't have the full list, but I know a few based on reports: CrowdStrike , MSP CFO , Valimail , Axcient , Redstor , Apptega .

6. An extremely popular event component was a security lab led by Andrew Morgan and John Strand that provided MSPs with a hands-on experience in dealing with a data breach. The only downside was that this was limited to the first 150 who showed up, so some MSPs walked away disappointed.

7. Did I mention that Channel Program partnered with Pax8 as the "Official Product Review Booth" for the event? At the event, we added several hundred MSPs to our community, providing direct feedback on various products, particularly products on the Pax8 line card.

8. For their first keynote, they played it relatively safe with Peyton Manning, who has been part of this industry at several events prior. It makes a lot of sense, given that Peyton also brought a Super Bowl victory to Denver. I'll say this, getting Peyton into a fireside chat vs. him doing a presentation was a very smart move.

9. I didn't attend many panels but heard incredible feedback from MSPs about the Matt Lee, CISSP, CCSP, CFR, PNPT led security panel with Jon Clay , Adam Gray , James Griffin & Chris Moores .

??SURPRISE, SURPRISE??

10. For the closing party, Rob and the team tapped a go-to favorite in the crowd with the Spazmatics, the Ultimate 80 cover band. However, they saved the best for last. They surprised most of the crowd with three-time Grammy winner, nine-time Billboard Music Award winner, and an artist that has sold over 21M albums in the United States, rapper Nelly. (No, not Nelly Fortado, as few in the crowd were excited about it when word got around ??.)

Nelly went 60+ minutes. This was a full-on PRIVATE CONCERT! The energy in the room was amazing; people were losing their minds, and seeing/hearing a bunch of middle-aged white men screaming, "so let's take off all our clothes" in response to Nelly's 'It's Getting Hot In Here,' "That gold Jerry, GOLD!"

Pax8 brought it for their inaugural event, and with some new lessons learned, I can only imagine what round 2 will look like.

_________________

SHAMELESS PLUG

For the first time EVER, you will hear from vendors whom all serve the Email Security category in one way or another. MSPs, this is your opportunity to hear from them all in one place, and you can attend for FREE and anonymously.

Register HERE!