I’m here in Seattle this week presenting at a conference on business blogging. It seems that I have been doing a large amount of traveling recently. This trend continues as it looks like i will be traveling to Miami in December to present on a panel at the IAEE about using social media to promote your trade show or convention. This is becoming a more popular way of promoting conventions, events and trade shows. People are using applications like blogging, YouTube, and other web applications that are consider social media tools. I’ll be talking with other industry leaders in the social media field on the panel to discuss how you can promote a convention or trade show using the tools available. Lots of convention and event planners are scrambling to get the upper hand in getting attendees and exhibitors to learn more about their event and the facilities where there event will be held. It should be a well attended session.

The event in December is well known to industry people involved in conventions and trade shows. The International Association of Exhibitions and Events Expo Expo is set to be held on December 9-11, 2008 in Miami, Florida at the Miami Beach Convention Center. Registration is set to open August 4, 2008. This is one of the largest events or the convention industry and if you decide to go, look me up! I’ll be looking for you too.

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I apologize for the scarcity of posts last week as I had a really bad bug that had me wishing that I might be at an end for this world. Luckily, the antibiotics have now kicked in and my lungs are back in my chest and the golf balls I swallowed are no longer cutting off my air supply. In case you haven’t figured it out I had strep and bronchitis and was my whimpering self.

Now that I have had a chance to get back in the saddle, I found a cool blog that is offering to give a code for all of you travel enthusiasts that want to attend a free pass at the Adventure Travel Expo. All you have to do is leave a link of your travel website or of your travel blog and you can get a pass for the expo.

The expo is going to take place at the Washington State Convention & Trade Center on September 13-14, 2008. The web site explains the overview of the event:

The event gathers hundreds of captivating destinations from exotic India to captivating Cayman and exciting, activities: a huge scuba pool, kayak demonstrations, an aerial zip line, a rope adventure course, cultural performers and much more. ATE is THE place to kick off the winter blahs and plan that ultimate vacation.

Sounds like a great event and some dynamite speakers are slated to talk about their trade. This from the press release:

Sponsored by the area’s leading newspapers, The Seattle Times and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, organizers will leverage the very lucrative Seattle-Tacoma DMA. ”Seattle is one of the largest media markets in the country with a high income population that is very involved with outdoor and leisure activities,” stated John Golicz, Unicomm’s CEO. “This is a great opportunity for travel marketers to expand market share in Seattle which increasingly serves as a main gateway to the Asia/Pacific region and Canada as well as an emerging market for the Caribbean and Latin America.“

I’ll be in Seattle next week myself giving a presentation and I’ll hopefully get to report from the area and see if I can get an interview with someone perhaps at the Washington State Convention & Trade Center.

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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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