Conferences & Tradeshows

I returned home from THE Domain Conference in Ft. Lauderdale, and I want to share some of my thoughts about it. I will preface this by saying that I arrived on Monday morning, the after the conference had officially started and two days after people began arriving. In addition, I did not attend any panels or keynotes, aside from Ron Jackson’s state of the industry report at lunch on Tuesday.

For the sake of this discussion, I will break this down into a few different categories to give a better idea of the event:

Venue

The conference was held at the Hyatt Regency Pier 66 hotel in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. The venue was perfect for this 200+/- person crowd (my estimate). There was an area for exhibitors outside of the two main conference ballrooms, and that communal area was large enough to hold conversations. There was also a restaurant / bar area in the lobby that allowed people to eat and drink as well as hold private meetings throughout the day.

The hotel rooms were decent – mine was clean and spacious. I understand the elevators weren’t great, but I had the good fortune of not getting stuck, which wasn’t the same for everyone. The $109 rate for a standard room was a very good price, although parking was a bit on the expensive side (I rented a car so I could visit some friends).

The pool area looked nice, but I didn’t spend any time there. I also believe there were tennis courts that I didn’t try. I did go for a run in the morning, and it was fairly close to the beach.

Attendees

As I mentioned, I think there were somewhere around 200 people in attendance. As usual,