This is not an endorsement of the best conference venue in the world but it did make me wonder if there exists such a high honor of being known as “best in the world.”  I myself have been to a number of conferences and all of them had pros and cons.  As I read through my RSS feeds today I noticed this headline by Ewan McIntosh, “Probably the best conference venue in the world.”

A bold statement for anyone to claim, but I wondered what made him decide to make that statement.  Here is the post:

What a treat for a blogging conference-goer: free, very fast wifi, electricity on tap, a wide-screen projection for wrap-around presentations and no podiums to get in the way of those tasteful headshots we’ll be capturing and posting to the LIFT08 Flickr feed. They’ve even got headphones for the translation of one of the French presentations and Laurent’s gang have laid on trams for us to get to our Fondue tonight. The best conference in the world? Probably.

Sorry Ewan, I didn’t intend to scrape the post in it’s entirety but it was short and to the point.

His list includes the following points:

• Free and fast Wifi;
• Plenty of electricity;
• Wide scree projection;
• No podiums; and
• Headphones for translations.

The real reason it seems that his opinion states that this is the best conference venue seems to be ease of use and being able to have amenities that work and make it easy for blogging or live reporting.  I hear this often when attending events.  It’s always “How’s the Wifi?”  Is there electricity my battery needs a charge?”  My friend and professional blogger Tris Hussey taught me long ago that when attending a conference, bring your own power strip.  Something I keep in my computer bag now as a staple.  You can make many friends if you are the man with the power.

The best conference venue I have been to in recent memory was the Bell Harbor Conference Center in Seattle after I attended the Blog Business Summit.  They had expensive and comfortable chairs, they had decent Wifi access and the stage and screen was easily seen. 

What is your favorite conference venue.  If you are a conference venue what do you have as amenities?  Can you be someone’s favorite conference venue?  It’s the little things that make a difference.

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