The week that was Pubcon

Wow what a week. There were a lot of highlights. I figured I’d blog about a few of them. A lot of my great times came from less tradition events (such as staying at the bar until 9:00 am).

Statistically here is what I achieved at Pubcon: 5 nights, 6 days, 8 hours of sleep, dozens of great new ideas, hundreds of contacts, hundreds of drinks, and a thousand laughs.

Monday – The Beginning

Monday night was great as it was my first chance to reconnect with a lot of people from Pubcon South. The evening involved cocktails at the Breeze Bar (lounge) in Treasure Island, cocktails at the convention center, and a night at Prive at Planet Hollywood.

Tuesday – The Tour and Showdown at the Poker Table

Tuesday, I hit some sessions and then skipped out to check out some absolutely amazing hotel rooms/suites (we are talking 16,000 square feet of pure opulence) at the Las Vegas Hilton. A special thanks to Peter Arceo (@PeterArceo) of the Las Vegas Hilton for being a great host and showing me around. Tuesday evening was an absolute riot. I found myself playing in the Hilton sponsored poker tournament for Pubcon attendees. The drinks were flowing and the laughs were flying. Again the Hilton staff were great hosts and allowed us to have tons of fun. It came down to Brain Chappel or Ben Fox as I was calling him, Kent Allen, and myself. Kent took third and walked away with a cool $3,000. I decided that Brian should take $10,000 and let him win which left me in second place with $4,000 and a huge smile. From there we rushed over to Lavo at Palazzo where the drinks were abundant. Then back to the breeze bar at TI. I believe the night ended at about 6:00 am. Many great conversations were had. Many great conversations were forgotten.

Wednesday – Late Night

Wednesday was upon us and I caught I bunch of sessions. I hit most of the affiliate panels and soaked up as much as my exhausted, hung-over little head would allow. Wednesday night involved drinks at the Wynn courtesy of LinkWorth team and then a visit to Rok at New York New York. The night again ended at the Breeze Bar sometime around 8:30 am.

Thursday – Poker, Drinks, and Laughs

Thursday’s start was a touch later – about 10:30 am (keep in mind that Kristy Bolsinger and I had our last drink at 8:30 am and many of the #smexies were with us till the very last minute – and was another great day of sessions and networking. After the sessions ended Michael Martin and I went over to Hilton where we played craps with Rae Hoffman. She was on fire with the dice which was great because I was betting $1000.00 promo chips. After some success there I hit the Purpose Inc poker tournament which was another great time that involved some serious poker and drinking and a surprise for Lyndsay Walker as I convinced her good friend Marshal Stevenson (who I hadn’t met) to fly down for one night, crash with me, and surprise her at the poker tourney – for obvious reasons this was a lot of fun. I believe we were amongst the last to leave the Mirage and headed back to the breeze bar where we partied until about 9:00 am. It was packed with pubconners until the wee hours of the night and a bartender dropped one of the best lines all week “It’s not usually this busy at 5:11 am”. My response – welcome to #pubcon.

Friday – The Classic and Some Ink

I slept from 9:30ish until 11:00am and then took care of some emails and work before heading over to the classic pubcon networking event at 1:30pm where we partied until about 10:00pm. Drinks with the animals from LinkWorth followed. Much of the night is blurry but they are a lot of fun. I think it’s safe to say it’s a great company to work for as two of their staff hit the tattoo shop to grab tattoos of the company logo. Hashtag #awesome .

Friday night ended late, I jumped on a flight in the morning – I’d never been so happy to give my liver a rest nor so motivated to work on some of my projects. Thanks to everyone for a GREAT week!