Here come the drums

"Hi, where do I find the keynote session," I asked the registration desk of the IT Service Management Forum (itSMF) conference. "That's upstairs. Just follow the drumming." Right, I thought.

IT conferences are generally pretty placid affairs. A lot of seated suits, one speaker droning on underneath a screen of PowerPoint notes, and so it goes for the rest of the day.

Imagine my surprise then when I walked into the itSMF conference at Sydney's Convention Centre to find almost every delegate pounding on a bongo drum in time with two showmen on stage.

This went on for a good five or 10 minutes or so, without a word spoken. The beat filled the room and delegates looked entranced. As you can guess, it was quite a sight, and I was beginning to wonder whether Microsoft had delivered some sort of mindset "update" that morning when the drumming finally came to a halt and rapturous applause.

The group, for the record, was called Rhythm of Life.

Obviously the session was scheduled during the middle of the day to provide some light relief.

But this got me thinking, do conferences on such bland topics as IT service management need raucous entertainment to ensure the audience stays awake?

One delegate confirmed my hypothesis during the following keynote. Listening to TransGrid CIO Tony Meehan talk about ITIL and service management, I heard the unmistakable sound of snoring to my left.

Sure enough, there was a middle-aged male delegate passed out in his seat, catching some serious zee's. After five minutes of attracting curious glances from those around me, a nearby delegate politely brought him back to the land of the living.

Do you know this man? Or have you witnessed similar conference hilarities? Let us know.