Happy 25th birthday, SAPPHIRE!

My, you have grown. From 120 participants in a New Jersey hotel, to the Orlando Convention Center, filled to capacity at some 20'000 experts, over three days, fed, watered, co-hosted with ASUG. During the first day keynote, co-CEO Bill McDermott mentioned that the online statistics where showing an attendance of about 80k online! 

People always ask what SAP stands for, but a similar question is never asked about the event. And, no, it isn't about hiring (SAP-P-hire). The acronym has outgrown its own meaning (SAP's Perennial Highly Integrated R2 Event). Now, there is so much more, and so many options. Back in 1989, R3 was only a dream still. R/2 was our bread-and-butter, and we had to memorize infotypes numbers and table codes.

You have travelled too, SAPPHIRE. You have shown a clear preference for Orlando, but having started in Philadelphia, you have wondered across both the US continent, moving to Europe and to the Far East. With a bit of research I came up with the following list of locations... but clearly, at SAP the focus is on the present and on the future.... and as you can see, my list has many unknown. 

1996 Philadelphia (8,000)/Vienna/Japan
1997 Orlando (12,000), Amsterdam/Yokohama
1998 Los Angeles (15,000) 
1999 Philadelphia/Nice (FR)
2000 Las Vegas
2001
2002 Orlando/Lisbon
2003
2004 New Orleans
2005 Boston
2006 Orlando/Paris
2007 Atlanta/Vienna
2008 Orlando/Berlin
2009 Orlando
2010 Orlando (18'000)/Frankfurt
2011 Orlando
2012 Orlando/Madrid/Beijing
2013 Orlando...

If you know more... please feel free to comment and add to it, I'll update. 

Source: https://www.facebook.com/SAP/timeline/1989 and www.sap.com