I just got back and all caught up from the trip to New York, so now it’s time for the obligatory wrap-up post.  For those of you that were not able to make it, you should definitely put it on your calendar for next year.  For pure value, contacts gained, and networking, this was the best show of the year for me so far.  Ad-Tech in November would have to be pretty spectacular to beat it.

I flew in on Saturday night, and got to The London at about 10:00 pm.  I scoped out the room for a minute, which was very nice, then headed out to dinner at Maison with some friends.  Then we walked around Midtown looking for a convenience store that was open to get some essentials that we forgot to pack.  I didn’t want to get too beat up the first night, so after that I just went to bed.

The London

My Room

On Sunday morning I had breakfast with HeavyT and then headed over to the Hilton to pickup our passes.  The ASE Meet Market was the main event for the day, which runs from 12:00 pm to 6:00 pm.  Once it opened, the Meet Market was totally packed.  You could barely walk through the aisles because there were people so packed in between the small tables.  I made the rounds and talked to people until about 4:00, then it was time for the PPV Playbook meetup at the Hilton bar.  It was an excellent little gathering.  There were lots of people excited about PPV and life in general, and it was cool to meet some of the regulars from the forums.  David (the owner) and Corey (from Affportal) couldn’t make it to the show, but they were attending it virtually through webcams on two MacBooks that were set up so they could talk to people.  I thought that was a pretty cool idea.

At 6:00 I headed over to Touch for the NYC Meetup202 group.  There was a huge turnout there as well, and I ended up taking several affiliates out for Steaks with Mike and Laura from GetAds.  After dinner we tried to get into the ShareASale party, because there was nothing else going on.  Unfortunately by the time we got there they had packed out the rooftop of the Empire Hotel so they weren’t letting any more people in until other people left.  And people weren’t leaving.  So we just went back to the London bar and had a couple drinks there.  I didn’t stay up very late since I had to work the GetAds booth at the Exhibit Hall first thing on Monday.

Meetup202 @ Touch

More Meetup202

Both days of the Exhibit Hall flew bye, which is definitely not the norm when you are working a booth.  I talked to so many affiliates (new and old) that it was really enjoyable for once.  We had a great spot for our booth right at the door for the 2nd floor, so we got a steady stream of traffic on both days.

Our Corner Booth Spot

There were lots of parties on Monday night, so I decided to try the Neverblue Underground Party first.  I thought that would be the best spot but honestly it was kind of lame.  The venue was in the sub sub sub basement of the Hudson Hotel, and there was no open bar.  Seriously?  Both Neverblue and CPX Interactive were listed as sponsors and nobody sprung for the open bar?  What exactly did they pay for?  Fail.  I had acquired a pass to the invite-only AdKnowledge party earlier in the day, which was at Covet Lounge.  I decided to check that out and it was way better.  Open bar, good peeps and awesome atmosphere.  I stayed there the rest of the night until closing time, then took a very roundabout cab ride back to the hotel because the driver didn’t know where the London was (really?).  I eventually just had to pull it up on my iPhone and tell him directions.

Tuesday after the show I was pretty exhausted, and it was time to head home.  Took a cab straight to the airport and jumped on my flight back to Denver.  The flight was terrible and the landing was super rough, but I survived.  PRO TIP: Don’t fly JetBlue if you can avoid it.  They suck.

All in all this was an excellent show, big props to Shawn and Missy for putting on another winner!