If you have not listened to the Virtual Assembly, I highly recommend it. David Corsaro's presentation included a couple of tricks, and a discussion of how to succeed at restaurant gigs. Even though I have no plans to do the other, I found the discussion quite interesting, and some of it applicable to other situations.

I just watched a few of the videos.
You're right, it is interesting.
I've never been at a SAM convention and it was fun watching the video. I especially enjoyed the Post Convention video.