December 7, 2007: I’m sitting in my hotel room (the unfabulous but spacious Residence Inn) after a busy first day at the opening of the PMA 07 International Convention and Trade Show. It was actually a half-day – the exhibitors were only showing to the press.

For those of you who imagine that these events are very glamorous and smoothly run, please allow me to peel back the curtain and share the reality of how my first day went. It started inauspiciously. Just before I left my hotel room to attend the first event, which was billed as a press “Sneak Peek,” I decided to give my metal-framed glasses one quick wipe. Imagine my delight when, midway through the cleaning, the metal frame snapped cleanly apart in my hand.

I’m not one of those people who wear glasses because they make me look smart. I’m one of those people who wear glasses because without them I make Elmer Fudd seem eagle-eyed.  This was not good. I walked to the Convention Center in a blurry haze, noticing that only did the attendees look good, but they looked even better in double vision.

Upon arriving at the huge Convention Center I asked the woman at the front desk if she could perhaps give me some scotch tape to hold my glasses together. The look she gave me suggested that scotch tape there was as precious as water in a desert, and that sparing even half an inch presented her with an insurmountable hardship. But after much begging and pleading, I convinced her to surrender a half inch of that rarest commoditiy.

After a few minutes of getting lost in the cavernous conference center, I finally found the press room. “Why,” the somewhat stern woman who was staffing the room asked me with the serious glare of a school librarian, “aren’t you at the press Sneak Peek luncheon?” 

I pointed at the sign that said “press room.”

“Um, I am?” I said with the confidence of a true coward. The whole time I was thinking “she’s being mean to me because my glasses are held together with tape like a character from Revenge of the Nerds.”

“The event isn’t being held here,” she proclaimed, as if talking to a slow five year old. “It’s in the south building.”

“OK,” I said cheerily, thinking “of course the press event isn’t in the press room. Why would it be?”

“You have to go downstairs and take the shuttle bus,” she instructed me.

“A bus? I can’t walk?” The day was hot, and I was already sweating.

“Not unless you want to walk half a mile,” she said.

I didn’t. I waited for the bus and went to the South End. Upon arriving, I saw a luncheon with about fifty tables of ten, but the event seemed to be wrapping up. It was 12:50 and the Sneak Peek was billed as 12-3.  What gave?

I asked a server for some food and she told me they closed the kitchen at 12:45 and it was impossible to get another plate. Desperately hungry, I found an unopened platter and devoured a turkey sandwich.  After a while, I noticed I was the only one with there with a press pass. I asked around and realized that the luncheon was being hosted by a subgroup of PMA which, I think, concentrates on framing. Was this the Sneak Peek?

Just then, Devin from JPEGMag, whom I met in November at the Photo Plus Expo, arrived. He too was wearing a press pass. He looked around at the mostly disbanded gathering. “Um, is this it?” 

“I don’t know,” I said unknowingly.

He approached a guard. “Do you know where the Sneak Peek is?”

The guard confidently pointed us at door at the end of the hall. We were thrilled until we found that the door led, literally, to an empty loading bay. 

“I don’t think that’s what we’re looking for,” Devin told the guard.

The guard shrugged. 

Eventually, we did find the Sneak Peek, up an escalator not anywhere near where the shuttle had dropped us off.

Happily, when we got there it was great. I don’t know how Devin did, but I met representatives from Joby, Fuji, Lensbabies, Bogen, Crumpler, Lynda.com, and a new (?) service that looks very interesting, Sharpcast. We also got to check up with our good friend from DXO Labs, Luc Marin.  We’ll definitely be having these companies on the show, and, yes, we’ll be hitting them up for discounts and freebies for our listeners. 

It would have been Nirvana if, after I broke my glasses, I didn’t turn around and break my out-of-warranty $2,000 notebook computer!!!

This is turning into the most expensive road trip ever.

Oh, things aren’t going much better for poor Michael, either. Through a series of flight delays and cancellations, his original arrival time of 3:30 is now pushed back to, I think, 1:00 am.  Then, we have to get up early to meet with Adobe. 

Oh well, tomorrow’s a new day. And, hopefully, one with fewer disasters.

Will you cross your fingers for us?

We’ll be posting again soon.

Scott

 

 

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