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The vibe at the 2013 GIS thus far is like a warm, mellow California kind of thing. It’s as if the entire industry smoked some fine medicinal doobage and just laid back and relaxed.
As I spoke with folks – both attendees and exhibitors – today, the smaller show and less hectic pace was apparent. Sure, there was the usual craziness out on the half-built tradeshow floor: screaming, cursing, nearly being run over by cherry-pickers and forklifts, but the SoCal chillaxin’ attitude prevailed and everything with all right, Bra.
The key thing I took away is that the supers who made the journey west did so with a specific or implied promise to their employers to make the most of the time and money. Some of the open education sessions were well-attended, particularly the career planning session (surprise) and other job enhancers like our pal Tim Moraghan’s presentation on dressing the part.
But many classes I stuck my head into were pretty sparsely populated. There never seemed to be anyone in line at registration and there wasn’t really a critical mass of people in the main lobby at any point. I asked a couple of association staffers what the attendance numbers looked like and they both said (paraphrasing) basically the same thing: “We think we’ll have great walk-up registration on Wednesday.” That’s code for, “We’re hoping for people to magically show up and put some bodies on the show floor the next few days.”
San Diego itself is great. The Gaslamp District, which was still a little chancy last time the show was here, has further gentrified and cleaned up its act (i.e., fewer panhandlers). All the hotels are close, there’s a crapload of bars and good restaurants and everyone is enjoying the mellow buzz of GIS ’13. The question is whether that translates into good business for the exhibitors and a good overall experience for the 2,000 or so actual superintendents who came West.
Our crew is kicking butt. If you are not following our Twitter (@GCImagazine) you are missing out on the weird, wacky and wonderful observations our team is sharing. Our booth (#810) is hidden at the very end of the show floor (it’s almost as if we’d somehow displeased the hosts and they gave us a lousy location...weird) but it’s worth the trek down there to see a few fun things we have going on.
If you’re amongst the lucky few attending today, don’t miss our TweetUp at 3:30 in the Aquatrols booth. And don’t you dare show your face around San Diego unless you’ve downloaded the new GCI app for your iPhone or iPad! There’s nothing mellow about the app…or anything else the knuckleheads at GCI have planned for the next couple of days.