The Complete Guide to Microsoft Ignite 2024

Well, it’s that time of the year again. Cloud technology conferences hosted by the two biggest cloud service providers in the world, Azure and AWS, are upcoming. 

AWS will host its massive re:Invent conference in the first week of December, preceded by Microsoft Ignite in November in Chicago, Illinois.

While cloud is obviously going to form the core of all proceedings at both conferences, this is probably the first year where generative AI is going to hog a lot of the limelight given the context and recent advancements in that space.

The end of the year is going to be one heck of a time. 

Anyways, we’ll talk about re:Invent 2024 in a separate entry, but this blog is all about Microsoft Ignite 2024.

Of course, there is a lot that’s yet to be unwrapped, but everything that you need to know if you’re planning to go to Chicago to be at MS Ignite 2024.

One of the biggest changes that Microsoft has made to its event lineup is merging its partner event Inspire with the earlier customer-only event Ignite.

From 2024, Inspire will merge with Ignite, meaning there is just one event for both partners and customers together. 

“We are reimagining Microsoft Inspire, evolving our partner-to-partner strategy to align with Microsoft Ignite, our flagship customer event.,” Microsoft said in an email communication. 

“This year, we will no longer conduct Inspire as a standalone Microsoft event in July but instead invite our partners to join customers for an in-person experience in Chicago, Illinois, at Microsoft Ignite on November 18-22, 2024. Attendees from around the globe may also join the live event digitally.”

Obviously, what this means is that the expo floor is going to get divided between direct vendors and partners.

Sessions focused on the partner and direct angles are also going to be held simultaneously.

Well, what we are going to get then is a bigger and hopefully better Microsoft Ignite 2024. Let’s jump in then. 

What is Microsoft Ignite?

Well, it’s not a bad question at all, especially if it’s coming from a newbie or someone who wants to attend or is going to attend Microsoft Ignite for the first time.

At the outset, MS Ignite is basically a networking-cum-learning event for all the Microsoft Azure practitioners; be it cloud developers, cloud software architects, or partners implementing MS Azure products, there’s something for everyone.

Essentially, you should go to Microsoft Ignite if you are an Azure practitioner in any capacity and are interested in any of the following:

1. Networking opportunities with peers from other companies using Microsoft Azure products. Microsoft is expecting around 10 thousand in-person attendees from the ecosystem to congregate in Chicago for the event. So, there’s plenty of new people to meet.
2. Technical learning opportunities and insights for those who use Azure cloud services in terms of how they go about their stuff and any tips or tricks they use to get more value out of Azure products.
3. News and keynotes from Microsoft about Azure products. Well, anything significant will come out in the tech press anyway, but there could be a lot of minute details that could be useful to learn about but may not be easy to know if you’re not there.
4. Get to know about the latest in AI and how you could leverage it in your day-to-day roles. It depends on how you perceive AI anyway.
5. Learn about products on the market that could improve your Azure operations in various ways.

In a nutshell, Ignite is to Microsoft what re:Invent is to AWS or Dreamforce is to Salesforce.

If nothing else, you can meet a lot of real-world Azure practitioners, catch up with faces you already know, and have a lot of fun in the process. It’s just a week anyway. And then you can go back home for Thanksgiving!

When and where is Microsoft Ignite 2024?

Microsoft Ignite 2024 is going to be held from November 18 to November 22 in Chicago, Illinois, at the McCormick Place Convention Center.

If you didn’t know, McCormick Place is the largest convention center in all of North America and is right on the shore of Lake Michigan. 

Ignite 2024 will take place in the West Building of McCormick Place on Chicago’s lakefront.

McCormick Place is located in Chicago’s financial district, a few blocks from downtime. 

Five days seems like a long time for an event, but note that November 18 is an optional day and the conference will close on the afternoon of November 22, so expect limited action on those two days. Also, you need to buy an add-on pass to be able to attend the pre-day event on November 18. That makes it a three-day conference, effectively. 

Also note that Ignite 2024 is going to be in-person as well as virtual. Dates virtual Ignite 2024 are November 19-21, 2024, so just the three days. 

Microsoft is expecting about 10 thousand in-person attendees in Chicago and a whopping 250 thousand attendees tuning into the virtual version of the conference.

According to Microsoft, across both the in-person and virtual formats, about two-thirds of all participants will be from outside the United States. 

Here’s everything in a nutshell again:

MS Ignite in-person conference dates: November 18-22, 2024

MS Ignite virtual conference dates: November 19-21, 2024

Location: Chicago, Illinois, United States

Venue: McCormick Place, West Building

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What’s on the Microsoft Ignite 2024 Agenda?

Well, the truth is we don’t know yet. The official day-by-day and session-by-session agenda is yet to be revealed, so watch this space. We’ll update this section as soon as we get word of the agenda. 

What we do know is that there are going to be about 1022 individual speakers across different companies, with those from Microsoft totaling about 636 at the 2024 event. So expect 600 odd individual sessions across different subjects.

It seems quite clear though that generative AI is going to dominate official discussions. 

Expect some new announcements during the opening keynote, which most likely will be delivered by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.

In the Ignite 2023 opening keynote, Nadella announced Copilot, Microsoft’s AI assistant, which apparently leads to a 70% increase in productivity among users. 

Nadella also announced Cobalt 100, Microsoft’s in-house cloud-native ARM-based chipset for data centers. Though announced last year, Microsoft previewed Cobalt 100-based virtual machines only in May this year.

The Microsoft CEO also announced Azure Maia 100, Microsoft’s first in-house AI accelerator or NPU for cloud AI workloads. Nadella also announced partnerships with both Nvidia and AMD at his keynote. 

In general, regardless of the agenda, make sure you go to the keynote sessions.

Breakout sessions tend to be a hit or a miss in terms of value for attendees, so it’s subjective and might appeal to someone who is interested in something specific. 

Note that all the sessions will be available to the in-person attendees to attend, but only some of them will be available online for the virtual attendees to stream into. 

Ignite 2023 had a grand total of 635 sessions across four days last year, so in preparation for this year’s conference, ensure you have enough time to sift through all the sessions and mark out the ones you want to attend.

As the agenda is released, we will also put out a list of the top sessions that everyone should try to attend. 

How can you get Ignite 2024 tickets, and how much will they cost?

Registrations for Ignite 2024 opened on September 10, 2024. If you're looking to buy passes, you can buy them on the official Ignite site here.

In keeping with the event format, there are three categories of passes for Ignite 2024:

1. Technical Attendee priced at $2,225: In-person full conference pass giving the buyer access to all keynotes, technical sessions, interactive labs and demos. You can also be a part of the evening celebration, get swags and access the online session scheduler. Basically, the full package.
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2. Partner Business attendee priced at $2,225: This is the in-person pass for Microsoft partners and similar to the full conference pass in terms of benefits but you get access to networking programs to meet with folks from Microsoft, other partners and customers.
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3. Digital online attendee pass is free: Gets you access to keynotes and sessions apart from digital swag. This is completely free.
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4. Expo pass priced at $1525: An expo only pass that gets you acess the expo hall to meet with all the sponsors and partners.
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In addition to above passes, you can also buy an add-on "Pre-day pass" at $325 to join the pre-day labs and sessions scheduled for November 18, 2024. There is also a $150 guest pass with which you can bring a companion to Ignite Celebration on November 21, 2024.

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Microsoft Ignite hotels, and where can you stay?

Well, booking flights is easy, but finding a hotel to stay and one that is as close to McCormick Place as possible is definitely a hassle.

Registrations have already opened and the attendee portal, as of September 11, 2024, shows a list of 17 hotels at discounted rates. The following are the hotels available in the portal. These hotels are priced between $229 and $319 per night plus taxes with most of them in the $250 ballpark plus taxes.

1. Aloft Chicago Mag Mile
2. Fairmont Chicago Millenium Park
3. Hilton Chicago
4. Hotel Chicago Downtown 
5. Hyatt Centric Chicago Magnificent Mile: 
6. Hyatt Regency Chicago
7. InterContinental Chicago Magnificent Mile
8. Palmer House, a Hilton Hotel
9. Pendry Chicago
10. Radisson Blu Aqua Hotel
11. Renaissance Chicago Downtown Hotel
12. Residence Inn Downtown
13. Sheraton Grand Chicago Riverwalk
14. Swissotel Chicago
15. The Blackstone, Autograph Collection
16. theWit Chicago, a Hilton Hotel
17. W Chicago City Center

Some options close to McCormick Place that are available at the time of writing are:

1. Hilton Garden Inn Chicago McCormick Place is about $480 a night and located about a mile away. 
2. Hampton Inn Chicago McCormick Place is also available at about $480 plus taxes and is about a mile away from the venue.
3. Marriot Marquis Chicago is available at about $550 a night.
4. Chicago South Loop Hotel at roughly $220 per night. It’s a little more than half a mile from the venue.
5. Travelodge by Wyndham Downtown Chicago is a decent option too, but it’s about a mile away and costs about $170 a night.

There are also a few options in South Loop if you want to lower your budget a little bit, like the Best Western Grant Park Hotel and Kasa South Loop Chicago, which are in the $150 a night price range.

The downside is that South Loop is about 2.5 miles away from McCormick Place, and transit options are not the best. 

Tips for Microsoft Ignite 2024 attendees

1. Tickets sell out fast, so be on the lookout for emails from Ignite.
2. Grab your badges and swags as soon as you get there. They tend to run out of swag pretty quickly.
3. Definitely go to the expo hall and explore all the different products exhibiting there. Not saying since we are a sponsor and will be exhibiting, but you never know if you’ll find something interesting.
4. Try to network with folks from Microsoft, especially those from the product and engineering teams.
5. Get to sessions early since they tend to fill out pretty fast too.

Meet Lucidity at Microsoft Ignite 2024 

Again, don’t forget to tour the expo hall and meet all the different sponsor companies and partners.

Make sure to stop by the Lucidity booth located at booth #304 to the right.

If reducing Azure costs is a priority for you, then you should definitely meet us.

Lucidity is the only product available today that can optimize your Azure disk storage utilization, reducing costs at scale. 

Looking forward to seeing you at MS Ignite in November!

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