Affiliate Summit East came and went quicker than any show I have attended in the past 6 years of my online marketing career, (yes I have been babysitting pubs for that long now) but I feel this is by far the best trade show I have attended yet. It definitely took a few years to perfect the location for Affiliate Summit East – Remember going to Miami in the middle of August with 95 degree weather and 100% humidity? How could one forget trying to find a place that was open past midnight in Beantown, let alone a cab from the Seaport Hotel? Without a doubt, New York’s energy, nightlife, amazing food choices and 4:00 AM last call make it the perfect location for ASE. What’s better than networking at Flashdancers and then bumping into a super affiliate while waiting for some beloved “Cart Food” at 3:00 AM?
This show was particularly exciting for the AKMG crew as we brought a whole new set of faces that included our new network director, Eva Wong, along with Affiliate Manager sensation Brandon “Kaveman” Moore. I think Brandon actually shaving his beard off got more attention than the ladies in matching white shirts at our booth! The tradeshow floor was packed, and at all times there was a line of folks waiting to talk to someone at the booth or trying to get their hands on our Jay Z-themed skate deck (Can you blame them? AKMG repp’ed the sickest swag in the show).
Some people get feisty over those darn decks, and I think I was offered money, alcohol, hand sanitizer, and someone’s first born child in exchange for one. Not only did we produce our most popular deck yet, but our new booth took stylish and simplicity to a whole new level with a touch of Hollywood red carpet glam. Since our booth was on the FIRST level (sorry to those networks that didn’t get their app in on-time) Our booth was conveniently located next to the Pulse360 booth and across from Copeac -- allowing for a front row seat to Eagle vs. Krongel’s “Kiss da Ring” drama d’jour. What what? If you weren’t there.... I am sure you heard about it. Eagle, you know I heart you!
Now for everyone’s favorite topic and what we are primarily infamous for.... The late night party stories. First night into NY my partner Kim and I went to an amazing wine and food pairing dinner with Chris Clark and Bryn Youngblut. After 8 full glasses of wine, let’s just say we were feeling quite dandy and by the end of dinner the only thing I could do was simply giggle and infest the rest of the table with contagious laughter. From there an adventure to Flashdancers was an absolute must. There was more cash, bottles and hot girls at our table than any other affiliate network’s attempt at throwing a sausage-fest party. If you were a victim of our ice throwing (cough cough KEVIN) you know you liked it and if you weren’t...I bet you want to party with us at the next trade show. After quite an epic evening, you would think one would be tired... But no... We still had 3 more nights of networking, partying and schmoozing pubs to tackle.
Sunday consisted of an awesome team dinner at Dos Caminos and since rumor on the street was the ShareaSale party wasn’t so popping, we made our way back to the London lounge which is typically full of networking opportunities late night. It’s also the only opportunity in my life where I can sit at a table and be the only girl with 15 guys... Living in LA the ratio is the exact opposite and I am usually not the cool one of the bunch since my vocabulary only consists of CPA, pixel and spam terms. After the London Bar shut down, making a trip to the famous dive bar Face & Names was a necessity before finally hitting the sheets and getting 3 hours of sleep before working a booth for 8 hours. After a day of hustling, shaking hands and smiling, Monday night lead to be another adventure that started with dinner accompanied by the fabulous Steve and Ryan from
Convert2Media. After destroying what seemed like 3 full-sized cows at Sparks, the excitement continued to the Neverblue dudefest 2010. The event was actually in a really cool location, but sweaty affiliate marketers on top of 90% humidity doesn’t always make for the best “party” environment. Care to dance anyone?
I didn’t make it to the Adknowledge or Engage parties, but I did hear good things about them, and Smaxor shared stories with me about how him and 6 guys were able to pound 2 bottles of Vodka in two hours that evening. As luck would have it, Monday night ended with another visit to Flashdancers. Interesting enough, all the AKMG girls were in attendance but where the heck was Kaveman? Tuesday couldn’t have come any quicker! Most people go home Tuesday, but since it’s a 6 hour flight back to Santa Monica we decided to stay one more night despite swollen feet and blown out vocal cords. One of our extremely generous email affiliates treated us to a tasty Asian dinner full of homemade tasty tofu, scrumptious saki and divine dumplings. Last stop was to Hotel Gansevoort which has a view of New York that looks exactly like all the postcards you see in the airport. After hanging with the Plenty of Fish crew and some other affiliates we snipped from another network (joking boys) it was time to call it a night and I was even kindly escorted home back to the London. I’ll spare the details on that one.
After four days of running around NYC in stiletto heels (Kaveman included in case you were wondering), it was time for the AKMG crew to head back home.... But we needed to make one last stop to Ray’s pizza to stuff our faces full of carbohydrates with a side of extra grease washed down with a Diet Coke of course. I’m not sure why we thought 8 pieces of pizza, 3 orders of garlic balls and chocolate chip cookies was necessary for 4 people, but it seemed like a great idea at the time. Too bad this resulted in horrible stomach pains during the cab ride to JFK in which Eva turned multiple shades of green. Minus an abundance of screaming babies (real babies, not Eleah’s affiliates), flights were smooth and I am very pleased to have not lost any luggage, credit cards or employees during our travels. With Affiliate Summit East in the bag, we have lots of follow up to do and decks to ship out but are extremely pleased with the overall success of our meetings with existing and new clients making all the preparation, travel and dry cleaning bills completely worth it.
