Meet the Players in the 5th Annual Iron Viz Championship

As many of you know, the Iron Viz Championship is the world's preeminent data visualization competition. Throughout the year, we hold three highly-competitive feeder competitions, the winners of which earn a trip to the Tableau Conference, all expenses paid. At the conference, we pit them against each other with the same identical data set to see who can make the finest visualization in the room. The catch: They only have 20 minutes to do it!

Although the field of competitors is always impressive, I have to say this year's group of winners is one of the strongest we've ever seen. Enough of my hyperbole—I'll let their vizzes do the talking!

When we opened up a contest for Wikipedia data—any Wikipedia data—we honestly had no idea what we'd see. We got bracket vizzes, science vizzes, even vizzes about the Simpsons. But the one that stood out the most was this beautiful, interactive, and intuitive visualization of French Impressionist painters from Shine Pulikathara. Take a look (and a listen) for yourself:

The rule was simple: visualize a data set with more than a million rows! Matt Chambers delivered with an impressive visualization that detailed the airports most frequently delayed by weather. The mechanics of the routes are particularly well depicted, and definitely contributed to Matt's domination in this contest. What else can we say? On your next trip, it'll be your own fault if the snow or rain slows you down!

The music viz contest was admittedly more lighthearted than our previous contests this year, but that doesn't mean the entries were any less amazing. Skyler Johnson took home the main prize with this view of the composition, history, and growth of the four largest music festivals in the US.

Who will take home the main prize? I couldn't tell you, but I can promise you it will be worth your time to see these three masters of visualization in action at this year's Tableau Conference. Join us at the Iron Viz Championship on Thursday, October 22 at 11:45 a.m. in the Grand Garden Arena at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. We'll also live-blog the event for those who'd like to follow along at home.