I knew that Lotusphere 2001 would sell out in record time. Anyone who didn't think it would has probably been living under a <DIV> tag for the last couple of years. It has gotten more and more popular and sold out in less and less time every year. Last year it sold out in less than a day, so anyone who thought that this year's registration record wouldn't eclipse the previous record must also think that Notes and Domino is going to be killed by Exchange. This year, it sold out in two hours. Two hours!

High demand plus a limited number of spaces equals headache; there's no two ways about it. Add to that a little bit of server malfunction, and you might reach for the Bayer. Add to that your utter paranoia that everyone is getting to register in front of you and that it will sell out before you can even download a complete page, and you might graduate to some extra-strength Tylenol. Start having sleep-deprivation-induced delusions you're going to be stuck watching the Webcasts over a 28.8K modem while everyone else in your office is getting wildly drunk on the beach at the Sunday night party, and you've just graduated to pure liquid Valium coming through an IV drip.

To make a long story short, I did finally get through on the Web site at around 6:45 a.m. PST. Not to be overly dramatic or sacrilegious, but it was like God himself restarted the server and downloaded the Holy Registration Page before my very eyes. I registered as fast as my little fingers would let me and amazingly received a preliminary confirmation via email within 15 minutes. It was so easy to register once I got through that I almost started to get paranoid, so I had my wife read the preliminary registration confirmation to me twice. She has an M.A. in English, so I asked her to give me her interpretation of this sacred document. She said, "You're in, calm down, stop being a spaz." Then I just kept repeating to myself, "I'm going to Lotusphere, I'm going to Lotusphere," interspersed with "I'm going to Disney World, I'm going to Disney World."

The DominoPower chorus on Lotusphere 2001 registration
I've asked my fellow DominoPower authors to help me out by providing some of their registration stories, perspectives, and opinions. Jon Johnston sent me a message that talks about Lotusphere selling out so quickly: