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A Tableau Conference 2025 Recap
It’s now been about three weeks since the 2025 Tableau Conference in San Diego. As is customary for me, I plan on recapping what I saw, experienced, and my thoughts on the whole thing. Before diving in, I recommend reading my pre-TC story, which tees up a lot of the ideas I had top of mind going into the conference.
The Setup: New Layout, Familiar Energy
Let’s start with logistics. This year, Tableau introduced something new: a space called the Content Pavilion, which housed eight different stages in one massive room. Each stage had independent audio streamed through the Salesforce Events App. I overheard some complaints — mostly about the audio setup and overloaded Wi-Fi access points — but to me, this was excellent. As someone who’s both friendly and somewhat well-known at these events, it made it significantly easier to actually attend sessions.
I’m not complaining about meeting up with people or getting lost in conversation — that’s part of the joy of TC — but I also find huge value in attending key sessions, especially to fill knowledge gaps. The Content Pavilion made it possible to drop in or catch multiple sessions without trekking endlessly across the venue (remember New Orleans?).
As I had prepared for the conference, I focused on finding sessions related to agentic analytics, a…