SIA can become a whirlwind of booths, brands and beverages but I thought I would take a break from traditional show coverage to give you a little look into what's really going on over here. Sometimes we get lost in our intense, aggressive and very serious coverage of the trade show and forget that while this is a show highlighting brands the most important element is really the people involved.
Right now we are employing what some would call a grassroots guerrilla style strategy. That's basically a euphemism for a bunch of people who have never done SIA before pretending to be confident and qualified pros while all cramming into one small hotel room.
To say there are a lot of familiar names here might be an understatement. Everywhere we turn more NS'ers seem to pop out of the woodwork. This means that we often morph into a belligerent clump of content creators, wandering the maze-like halls of SIA in search of a story, a wayward brand, or even just free waffles.
Once the dust settles and everyone recovers from three days of non stop booth surfing I'll come up with a more thorough recap. Until then, some highlights.
Day 1:
-Sneaking in to the room while Doug and Travis slept and aggressively claiming the couch only to find out that it was really not made for a person my size.
-Waking up to find five people in the room instead of three.
-Meeting Dan Brown of Line for the first time after accidentally knocking over Line's entire 15/16 freestyle ski lineup while trying to hand flex the tigersnake. (I claimed I was doing durability testing)
-Checking out all the weird fringe brands at SIA (article to come)
-Getting lost multiple times in the convention center
-Gavin Rudy's backpack looks really heavy, mine is light because all that is in it is brand swag
-One middle aged, slightly dazed looking asian man wandering the show with a banshee bungee wrapped several times around his neck
-Always finding ON3P's booth when I was looking for something totally different
-Meeting a multitude of NS'ers
-Erika winning a turtle shell at the Orage booth. I won a chest mount for my phone, which is pretty cool too I guess.
-Denver indy concert with the most intense fiddle player I have ever witnessed.
-711 Pizza and Nachos
-Returning to the hotel room only to find a key in the door and Peter asleep on the couch. He is only responding by laughing in a sickly fashion that makes me wonder if he needs the Heimlich
-Reading the comments on the Day 1 article out loud. (we took some to heart and laughed heartily at others)
-Fitting four people on the floor and one on the couch of a room that should sleep one comfortably.
Day 2
-Cold 711 Pizza and Nachos
-Resolving to survive on only booth food for the day (story coming)
-More mac computers and chargers tangled than an average hipster coffee shop
-David Lesh's dog. (and David Lesh too I guess)
-Free Van's booth waffles
-"Is that Tom Wallisch?!?!"
-Darn Tough Socks maple syrup ice cream with bacon bits
-Seeing a bunch of pros but not doing anything about it because we were busy with....
-Wine, and Good Company preview at the North Face booth
-NS takeover of the North Face tent (it was big and yellow and had chairs).
-Informal NS interview of Tom Wallisch in the northface tent. (story to come)(maybe)
If you do an interview in a tent and don't snapchat it does it really count?
-"Humans of SIA" (HYPE, story to come)
-Peter falls asleep again
-Bishop explains why Lady Gabber is a good idea (it will blow your mind)
-I write this article at 3AM and hope I spelled most of it right.
Stay tuned we've got a lot more coming in the next few days and I'm stoked to bring you some more stories from the floor!
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