Twelve data leaders.
Five wings.
No PR answers.
An evening of hot wings and uncomfortably direct questions about how data teams are really using AI.
Everyone says their AI strategy is working. Almost nobody's is, entirely.
The Scoville Sessions is a roundtable dinner for data leaders built on a simple premise: it’s easier to be honest when your mouth is on fire. Twelve seats. Five wings, each hotter than the last. A bowl of questions nobody would answer straight on a conference stage.
Your name gets drawn. You eat. You answer.
Bring your appetite and a high tolerance for candor.
Three steps.
No way around the middle one.
Draw
Names are pulled at random from the bowl. No running order, no volunteering, no way to see it coming.
Eat
Everyone hits the same wing at the same time. Five rounds, each hotter than the last.
Answer
A question drawn blind, escalating with the heat. Sweating is allowed. Hand-waving is not.
Five sauces, in one direction.
All five are house sauces from Fire on the Mountain, made in-house daily. You get the same wing as everyone else, at the same time, whether or not you're ready.
Lime Cilantro
Their most-awarded sauce. Buffalo base with citrus, cilantro, and a jalapeño edge that shows up late.
Raspberry Habanero
Sweet for about a second and a half. Then the habanero arrives and stays.
Buffalo Hot
The classic, intensified. This is the round where the table gets quieter.
Extra Hot
Jalapeño, habanero, black pepper, and capsicum extract. The extract is the part that means business.
El Jefe
The house extreme, and the one that's been on the Food Network. This is where the last questions get asked.
Fire on the Mountain doesn't publish Scoville ratings, so the ladder is ordered by their own heat scale rather than by number. Final sauce selection is confirmed with the kitchen closer to the date.
Two hours, one table,
and a bowl nobody can see into.
Doors at 5:30, out by 7:30. The heat climbs, dips once for mercy, then climbs past where it should.
5:30 — Arrival and drinks
Find the table, find a drink. Nothing is on fire yet.
5:50 — Wings 1–3, warming up
The bowl opens. First names drawn, first questions answered while everyone still has their composure.
6:30 — Palate cleanser
Milk, ice cream, and a short look at what Coalesce and Hex have been building together. Seven minutes, one story, then back to the wings.
6:45 — Wings 4–5, the real questions
The heat stops being funny and the answers stop being rehearsed. This is the part people came for.
7:20 — Trophy, photos, and a drink you've earned
Somebody wins something. Everybody gets a photo they'll either love or quietly delete.
Times are the shape of the night, not a script. The questions stay in the bowl until the night.
This is a dinner, not a talk with snacks.
Request a seat at the table
Portland, Wed, Oct 28. Tell us who you are and what you can't eat, and we'll come back with the details.
A Coalesce × Hex production. Seats are limited. Heat is not.
Can’t make Portland? We’re running the same night in Denver on Wed, Oct 7.