It's so hard to believe that Vegas Affiliate Summit is already done and over....and a few weeks have passed! There was so much hype about this show and literally at the blink of the eye I was already checking out of my room in the Encore ready to make my way back to a stormy Los Angeles.Based on stats, there were over 4000 attendees at Affiliate Summit West, and rightfully so - as many agree that this was the best Affiliate Summit to date for more than one reason.
The location of the Rio served it's purpose as the venue for the show, although I am genuinely hoping this location will change soon as the Rio is in definite need of a facelift. Despite the all the hangovers and distractions that Vegas brings, the show exhibit hall was packed at all times.The Meet Market was literally shoulder to shoulder, so anyone who had a table definitely got their money worth.As for being an exhibitor, I was very pleased with the foot traffic that the exhibit hall brought - the booth was busy at all times with plenty of folks wanting to talk to the AKMG team. Best part about Affiliate Summit is the audience that it tailors too - There is much less sifting through people at your booth that you don't know what they do and they really cant explain to you what they do.
I would say the AKMG team easily came back with a stack of over 1000 business cards, some existing but a lot of new business as well.I really liked the location of our booth on the floor as well - in a easy to locate spot in the front, we also got a lot of attention for having 5 ladies dressed in fedoras and all black.
I have been a part of AKMG for 3 months now, and felt that Affiliate Summit was the first show I was fully able to come out with my new company, a new image and a new mission... also don't forget new high lights! The ora of this show was different than most I felt, a lot of this due to the crash of rebills that recently took place.For the record - No - I am not being sued by Google, I think I got asked that 15 times at the show.... The former queen of biz opps has stepped down from her throne my friends.
While most people were stoked to be at the show, it seems there were a decent chunk of folks looking to do some bill collections.It was amazing to hear just how many people had been stiffed or screwed out of money because they let some fly by night advertiser rack a huge bill with them, and then they got stuck holding the bag when the advertiser stopped returning their calls, fled the country or in some cases turned out to be a terrorist. Luckily the dissolving of rebills and acceleration of merchant account drama didn't affect AKMG as much as it affected some of our competition...All I have to say is we feel for ya Smaxor.
The competition seems heavier than ever between the million networks that attended - networks banning other networks from their party, dirty looks and comments between AM's in the aisle's of the exhibit hall and in some cases networks blatantly mocking another network in their swag gear. So much for professionalism... but that's a non existent term in an industry that slings acai berries and fake grant programs in order to keep the lights on.
The parties of course are a huge topic... but I want to ramble on about those later because I have a fabulous photo album to go accompany them, especially because the AKMG ladies seemed to be some of the only non paid girls at all of them!
I must touch base on one of the trademarks of AKMG, the beloved skate board decks. Only 100 Vegas 2010 edition decks were made - and they were snatched up quicker than the free beer at the Convert2 booth. Every year a new artist designs the decks, and this year we decided to go a little bit wild and had both sides of the deck decorated in artwork! My personal favorite is a quote from Miss Eleah Portillo herself, "What happens in Vegas... End up on Facebook."In a few cases I had a few people that yelled at the AKMG ladies and myself when they came over for a deck and there weren't any left.... Sorry folks.... come to the booth earlier next time!
For those of you that we promised to ship boards to... they are on their way!Since this is pretty long - I am going to conclude this as part 1 of my blog post - Part 2 coming later this week!In the mean time enjoy the photo of the ladies from the AKMG booth!
