Been to ad:tech, hated it!

UPDATE: This was 2008 - they may have got better but bear in mind it was a while ago.

This post starts a new category in the blog, reviews. I feel like it's time to reward those who do well as well as share bad experiences for everyone to learn. Of course it is my sole opinion, but blogs are about this. I am sure this will remain between me and you anyway!

Queue

It's ok to queue for an event, it means that a lot of people are attending. This becomes a bit of a pain in the neck when you have to do it under the rain (what? Rain in London? How come?). This gets even worse when the line of pre-registered people is half a mile long. But wait there is more. If you wanted to register on the spot you got to wait one fifth of the time. Wow what a great way to reward those who actually bothered to go on your website! Insulting...

Twitter

I started to twit about the event this morning. It was cool I found a lot people within my followers going to the event. Events in Twitter are marked by the # tag. I was twitting about going to #adtech or #ad:tech but the system did not recognize it (i.e. #adtech did not become a link). Update: Actually events are marked with # tag but do not become link. They become link when searched in twitter search.  Anyway they did not have any @adtech acccount, from where to send twits. That means that nobody registered a twitter account. I am not saying it is a must for every event, but what the hell! It is ad:TECH not ad:NEWSPAPER or ad:OLDMEDIA. I was expecting a live screen with twits about the event (great idea to implement at your next event) Update: to do that use Twittercamp. Web 1.0 ...

Networking

I went there to network and meet interesting contacts. I did not care about stands and so forth. We can agree that most of us attend events just for what happens at buffets or for the interaction with peers, possibly to improve our business. I wasn't actually looking for being exposed to sales people of products that, if in the business, you already know. Unfocused...

Credit to Orange for having a networking space, with free coffee, free beers, free lunch, tables and chairs.

The Environment and Sustainability

Miserable. I am very disappointed about this. The amount of paper used to give out useless leaflets which most of the time went directly to MIXED WASTE bins was ridiculous. Come on! There are tons of solutions out there to send your information via bluetooth or on a USB stick.

I was not provided an event guide upon registration, I would have loved to get that emailed this morning, instead of bothering about bringing that home (where I can recycle it). You cannot allow that if you are an event manager. You need to work out solutions for this issue. I remember attending a tradeshow for event planners a couple of month ago. 65% of companies exhibiting were about being sustainable. Shortsighted...

One good thing

The only service I liked was getting slides of attended sessions via email after your badge was scanned.

Vote: 4