Photoshop World Las Vegas Summary
September 13, 2006 by Mike Wong • Comments Off
Well, Photoshop World has come and gone and oddly, it feels like it was a long time ago, but it was just one week ago that I was on a plane heading down to Vegas. Here's a quick recap of my week in Las Vegas.
After landing in Vegas, went straight to the Mandalay Bay hotel, checked in and then went down to the Convention Center to set up our booth. Of course, though, the booth wasn't there so we had to sit around a wait for a couple of hours. Here are a couple of pics from my cell phone while I waited at the loading dock and of the rest of the onOne crew killing some time in our (empty) booth space.
Of course, everything eventually showed up and we got it all taken care of. Afterwards, I was fortunate enough to be invited to a dinner sponsored by American Photo magazine where I was a guest with others including Greg Gorman, Jeff Schewe, John Paul Caponigro, Dan Steinhardt and Andrew Rodney. FYI, Greg knows how to pick a good wine. We went to the Red Square restaurant in Mandalay Bay and I had an amazing filet mignon. Here's where my week gets interesting.
Prior to this trip, I had 2 general rules that I follow when I travel for tradeshows.
Rule number 1: Never have any more than 2 drinks the night before I have to demo. Like most lessons, I've learned this one the hard way. During my days at Extensis, I've been known to have a few drinks with friends and co-workers only to suffer the next day on the show floor. Not good. So, no more than 2 gin & tonics and all works out well the next day.
Rule number 2: Never eat fish on the road. Last year at Photoshop World Boston, I ate fish the night before the first day of the show. I'm in Boston, so I should be safe eating fish right? Wrong. Man, that was a tough day. I was sick like I've never been before. There's nothing quite like getting sick like that on the road. Fortunately for our company president, we each had our own rooms at that show.
Rule number 3: New rule established just this year at Photoshop World Las Vegas. Never eat a salad on the road. At the dinner I mentioned above, I was good and had only one glass of wine (thanks Greg) and steered clear of the Ahi Tuna that looked good and ordered a filet mignon with a house green salad. That was to be my undoing. Hours later, I'm sick as a dog. Get this though, it was 1 year TO THE DAY that I had gotten sick in Boston.
After a full day of laying on my back and watching some horrible tv including 10 varieties of Judge Judy and the People's Court, I finally rallied and pulled myself together around 5pm and eventually made my way over to the After Hours Party at Game Werks that we sponsored. Miraculously, I ate a little bit of food and a couple of Cokes and I felt like a million bucks.
At the party, I got to meet Moose Peterson in person finally (we'd been trading emails for months) as well as Joe McNally. That's the great thing about these shows is the people you get to meet. Both of these guys were incredibly nice and I was honored to meet them.
Day 2 of the show was great. Our booth was packed and were we able to talk to a lot of users out there and show them our latest stuff including PhotoFrame Pro 3 and Mask Pro 4. There's nothing like talking face to face with you guys and I love every chance that I get to do it.
The highlight of my week though was going to the Art of Digital Photography Show. My friend Jim DiVitale hosted it and he told me not to miss it and I'm glad I didn't. I always love seeing Jim's amazing montages. If you've not seen Joe Glyda's Self Assignments, you don't know what you're missing - you've go to see them. They are fantastic. Joe McNally's slideshow was great and I'd love to know what songs he did his show to. Of course, Jay Maisal's work is fabulous and he treated everybody to a slideshow that documented the first 13 years of his daughters life. I can't remember the last time I enjoyed seeing that many pictures of someone else's family. 
Last but not least, the work of Moose, Vincent Versace and John Paul Caponigro is wonderful and inspiring.
I was surprised at how many people in the audience had never been to a PSW before. Over half of the audience.
All in all, it was a great show, food poisoning aside of course. Looking forward to seeing everybody again either at PhotoPlus East in November or PSW east in Boston next April.