Food Trucks, Blackouts, and the Best Conference We Ever Ran

A lightning strike, a dead livestream, and a food truck fix borrowed from London: the story of the SauceCon that became company legend. Bill McGee spent nine to ten years at Sauce Labs, joining as an events manager when the company had fewer than 50 employees and going on to build out both the Selenium Conference and SauceCon. He joins host Tim Arthur to talk through Sauce Labs' relationship to the open source Selenium project, the year a lightning strike knocked out power mid-keynote in Austin, and why he still believes in-person events matter more than ever in an AI-driven industry.What You'll Learn: Open source ownership: Selenium co-founder Jason Huggins donated the project's trademark and copyright to the Software Freedom Conservancy before Sauce Labs took its first venture capital, to keep it independent and free to use. Mobile expansion: Appium became the mobile testing counterpart to Selenium, extending Sauce Labs' infrastructure beyond browser testing. Crisis in real time: a lightning strike hit the Austin Hilton mid-keynote and knocked out the livestream until backup generators caught up. Improvised production: the same storm's wind and rain pushed the team to move an outdoor reception under a portico and bring in food trucks. Borrowed ideas travel: the food truck fix came from watching Ministry of Test co-chair Richard Bradshaw run a similar setup at a San Francisco event. Education over lead-gen: SauceCon was built around teaching customers to actually adopt automated testing rather than pushing new sales, which Bill credits with driving retention. Production speed as differentiator: same-day video turnaround set Sauce Labs' events apart from the grassroots, months-later posting typical of open source conferences. Resilience after COVID: despite a two-year pandemic pause, Sauce Labs revived the Chicago-based Selenium Conference once its venue contract came due.Time-Stamped Highlights (00:00) Welcome and introduction (00:40) From banner ads on Netscape to the client side (01:41) Joining Sauce Labs at under 50 employees (02:18) How Selenium and Sauce Labs are actually connected (03:33) Appium: Selenium's mobile counterpart (04:17) Tracing back where they first met: Portland, Austin, Chicago (06:13) Picking a favorite event: SauceCon Austin (07:49) The lightning strike and the dead livestream (08:33) The animated origin story Easter egg (09:02) Pivoting to food trucks mid-storm (09:34) Where the food truck idea actually came from (10:13) Why SauceCon was never about lead generation (12:01) Face-to-face events in the age of AI (13:36) Same-day video turnaround and the conference archive (16:07) Closing commentsGuest bio: Bill McGee spent nine to ten years at Sauce Labs, joining as an events manager and marketing generalist when the company had fewer than 50 employees and staying on as it scaled around the open source Selenium testing framework. He led production of the Selenium Conference and SauceCon before leaving full-time work two to three years ago. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/billmcgeeAbout the Podcast: A conversation series featuring event producers, marketers, and technologists talking through the real stories, wins, and near-disasters behind the industry's live events.Host bio: Tim Arthur has spent more than 20 years producing video and live event content around the globe, working across marketing, technology, and production. He approaches each project with an emphasis on extending clients' and partners' reach and value through creative, discerning production.