You'll also want to factor in the size of the room that the session will be held in. Some of the cattle call sessions (think: R5 orientation) can seat hundreds, other rooms seat 90 or so. Some of the sessions will be repeated if there's sufficient overflow, but don't count on it. Check the map that's included in your registration packet and plan on being at the smaller sessions 10 minutes prior to the ending of the earlier breakout.

The scheduled sessions are only part of the story
Most first timers to Lotusphere are surprised that the formal breakout sessions aren't necessarily the best part of the 'sphere. In addition to the formal sessions, I'd highly recommend that you visit the labs, go to one or more Birds of a Feather (BOF) sessions and of course, visit the vendor showcase. [Don't forget the hot tub! It's a big win as well! -- DG]

BOFs are informal get-togethers which are facilitated by Lotus or Iris. They are very free-form in nature and allow Lotus customers with similar interests to get together, network and work on problems jointly. Check the schedule carefully and attend at least one of the Birds of a Feather sessions. You'll need to get to the BOFs very early though. They tend to fill up quickly and unlike the formal sessions, no overflow sessions are scheduled for the BOFs that have too many attendees.

The labs are (at least for my company's money) the best part of going to Lotusphere. Got a problem with ODBC access in LotusScript? You might talk to the person who wrote it -- if you go to the lab. Do you have a question about security over the Web? Meet the person who wrote the SSL support in Domino and he'll probably be able to answer your question. Be sure to leave enough time in your plans to spend at least two or three hours strolling the labs and working on any issues that you have.

Don't bother bringing the printed books with you to the breakout sessions
When you registered for Lotusphere, you were asked if you wanted a printed version of the presentations. Well, I've got some news for you -- nine out of ten sessions start with the speaker saying "Sorry, this presentation isn't in the book, we'll have it on the Web site in two weeks". Save your shoulder the effort and bring a small blank pad to take notes with. More and more people bring laptops to the breakout sessions. Very few of the breakout sessions have electric outlets available though, so you had better have a long-lived battery if you're going to go this route.

More ideas
According to the information posted on the Lotusphere home page, there will be approximately 300 workstations for over 8,000 attendees. Do the math and don't expect too much time in front of a screen.

The workstations in the basement do seem to be easier to get to (just to the right of the vendor showcase). If you do get some terminal time, check out the discussion groups for interesting rumors and technical give and take. The workstations usually have the floppy drive disabled so don't count on doing anything tricky. By the way, don't bother trying to steal a copy of the Domino Directory during the conference. Lotus has made it harder and harder to steal the attendee list over the years. [Does it worry you like it does me that Richard knows how hard it is to "steal" the attendee list? -- DG] There's enough marketing and recruiting going on in person and in the discussion groups, so you'll have to find another way.