Tradeshow Madness
Thursday
May 8, 2008
Is there really a “trade show season”? I’ve heard this referred to time & again, but I seem to go year ’round so I don’t know what that season is! Yes, soon it will be time for me to hit the road again and make my rounds of the country in search of truth, justice, and the American Business Way!
Actually, both of the conferences in my future take me to Boston, MA. I’m hoping since it’s on the coast that it won’t be as muggy and terrible as when I visited New Jersey in 2006 for a film festival. That was awful. I’ve never been to Boston, so I’m excited. This next trip is quick and won’t allow for a lot of time to see any sights except in the evenings, but for the second show I’ve worked a day or so in to see some stuff.
First stop, the HOW Design Conference May 18th through 21st. I’m on booth duty the entire time, so no sessions for me. Which makes me sad, but I’m relying on a co-worker that is attending the sessions to take good notes because I’m sure it’ll be interesting. In a geeky designer way. In booking this trip, it was pretty last minute for the company to make up it’s mind in who would be sent, so costs were pretty expensive. I managed to get one hell of a deal on a flight for $380 on Hotwire, a feat which seems to not be repeatable as looking for the flight for my second outing only returned prices in the $420-460 range. Since it was also the last minute and there has GOT to be some other conferences or events going on the same week, almost every decent hotel in the area was booked solid or $500/night. So we’re staying at the Best Western near Longview Medical for $300/night. Never have I stayed in such a poorly valued Best Western - but we’ll see.
Next on my list, the always great Affiliate Summit. 
I won’t be attending this as a representative of PsPrint. This is on my own dime. I’ll be going as a member of the press, and will be reporting live (hopefully) on the sessions I attend and the different events I go to. I’m stoked, and BIG Shout Out to Missy Ward, one of the co-founders, for helping make this happen for me. I’ve booked my hotel already, luckily getting on on super fair group rate of $189/night at the Seaport Hotel where the event will be happening. As I mentioned above, I tried to get a great deal on a flight booking 3 months in advance, but still only got higher…so I’ll watch the fares for awhile and see what I can do to swing a cheaper flight. I’ve built a day into my schedule out there to HOPEFULLY see some cool Boston stuff…maybe if I win the lottery I can go to a Red Sox game at Fenway! I’m really excited and can’t wait.
And BEST news of all, the wonderful Scott Jangro found out the problem I was having with the RSS feed - Revver & PodPress were just not playing nicely together. It has been fixed so PLEASE remember to subscribe to my RSS feed!
Be sure to share some travel tips with me!
Comments
Linda Sherman
May 8th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
Trish, Thanks for the tip on Hotwire, I've never tried it. Per your request for travel tips - Here is my post on Las Vegas trade show travel tips: http://itsdifferent4girls.com/blog/2008/02/15/l...
No offense but the ordeal that DISQUS puts you through to “verify” your post is a real pain. I have registered for this thing but it never works so from now on I'll just post “unverified”
TrishaLyn
May 8th, 2008 at 10:11 pm
Thanks for the link Linda - I didn't see that one. I'll take a look.
Sorry you don't like the Disqus… I feel that the pros outweigh the cons of the verify step. So many blogs I read and comment on use it that I'm signed in almost all the time and don't have to go through the verification. Post unverified if you like - it's your call!
Sam Harrelson
May 9th, 2008 at 10:04 am
The Fall is absolutely crazy for me every year. I think I'm in and out of town all but one week between August and September!
Just as a tip, I love Dopplr for finding who's near me in a town or what to do there (http://www.dopplr.com). And TripIt (http://www.tripit.com) is one of my top 5 “must have” apps. Basically, TripIt organizes all of your travel info so that you can access it from anywhere very easily. You just fwd in your hotel or airplane or rental car info and it translates it into a very organized agenda for you. So cool.
I never thought I'd be traveling this much a few years ago… once you attend a couple of conferences a year it really does snowball!
Sam
TrishaLyn
May 12th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
Is tripit much different than TripAdvisor? I started to use that awhile ago, but I've slacked in it. I've seen the Dopplr thing on your site a long time ago and I'll have to check that out too. Thanks for the info!
Sam Harrelson
May 12th, 2008 at 5:37 pm
Nope, TripIt is something completely different. I guess I'd call it a travel organizer. For example, I'm flying to San Diego tomorrow and staying overnight. So, when I got the confirmation emails from the airline and hotel, I just forward them to plans@tripit.com and they parse everything out into a neat and tidy calendar that I can subscribe to in my Google Calendar (or Outlook or iCal or whatever you use).
It's a great system and has a great mobile site for when you get to the airport and don't know which airline you're flying on or where you're going (which seems to happen to me frequently).
TrishaLyn
May 12th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
Oooh works with G calendar eh? I'll check it out. Thanks!
Sam Harrelson
May 12th, 2008 at 6:13 pm
Yep, you just grab the iCal link (like RSS) and add it as a calendar in
GCal. It's awesome!