I flew into New York City late Tuesday night, around 8pm. I got to the room at the New Yorker and met up with Sam (conv3rsion) from Optimal Webworks. We were hungry so what else would you expect, we went to the halal cart at 53rd and 6th for some chicken and rice. With that, I accomplished the one thing I set out to do the entire trip.

Wednesday – Day 1

I was still hella tired from the day before, but Sam and I finally go to the conference around 11am.  We quickly made our way to a corner of the exhibit hall to start makin our way down the aisles and as soon as we stopped at a booth we ran into AdHustler and Mike from Firelead.  Chatted those guys up for a few minutes and continued to make our way throughout the booths.  We quickly noticed it was the same companies and the same faces.  It was kind of a disappointment.

After about 2 aisles through, Sam and I decided to hit up the Convert2Media booth to hollar at the C2M crew, their new team member, Rob Adler and to help float their infamous kegs.  At the booth, I was able to meet with my buddy Morgan Thomas and also got to meet another affiliate that I had been talking to on AIM for awhile, Jessica Chen.  It was great finally getting to meet her.  I think C2M had Stella on tap this time, but don’t quote me.  Before I knew it, it was time for my 1pm lunch lunch with one of my favorite traffic sources.  Sam, Jess and I all went to eat with them at Hudson Yards Cafe and they were packed, but the food was awesome!

By the time we got back to the Javits Convention Center, there was only a few hours left to finish making my rounds and I did so quite quickly.  As I already noticed, same companies, same faces.  Pretty quickly I ended up back at the C2M booth drinking beer.  Unfortunately the staff at Javits couldn’t figure out how to tap a keg so we were left drinking out of bottles.  I wasn’t complaining though.  I was able to meet up with AdHustler and Ian Fernando.  I also finally ran into Ryan Gray and it was great meeting him.

Soon enough it was 5pm and time to meet up with Plenty of Fish.  I got there considerably early hoping they might be there, but they didn’t make it there in time for me to get to hangout with them because I had another dinner to go to at 6pm.  That’s too bad, I was really looking forward to that meeting.  We’ll make up for it in Vegas though, I’m sure.  Next was the dinner at The Spotted Pig with Sam, Jess and the team at Adsimilis.  The food there was excellent as well.

Then it was on to the Clickbooth party at Marquee.  We decided to start the night off right and ordered 6 shots of vodka.  It was some cheap ass vodka and the total ended up being $108.  Fuck New York City and their outrageous cost of living. Anyways, so Sam and I decided to take full advantage of the open bar and started getting drunk.  It was pretty dead when we showed up and slowly started filling up and then all of sudden it was too packed to walk anywhere.  Just to name a few, Clickbooth, of course, C2M, ECM, AdHustler and Ian Fernando.  I actually met @Cheyyyaaboiii so for everybody who has asked me, he is a real person, but that’s all you get.  I was able to chat up Rohail Rizvi for few minutes before the party got to outta hand.  Once the open bar closed, we finished our alcohol and again hit up the halal cart and murked some chicken and rice.  Then it was off to the room to get some sleep before the final day of the conference.

Thursday – Day 2

Woke up super late and hungover, slept through my meeting at 10am and finally made it to the conference right at 12pm.  Went straight to the C2M booth to cure my hangover with a couple more cups of beer.   I hit a few spots in the exhibit hall, but I made it a point to say hey to my new affiliate managers at Neverblue and Copeac, Michael Crouch and Frank Ciuffo, respectively.  I’m glad they’re my new AM’s, they’re on top of they’re game.  Rescheduled my 10am meeting for noon and was finally able to meet up with Ben from Plenty of Fish.  Kinda had to cut that meeting short because my shuttle to the airport was scheduled to be at my hotel to pick me up at 1:15pm.  Sorry Ben!  We finished that meeting right at 1pm and while I was trying to flag down a cab, SuperShuttle called me to let me know I had 4 minutes to get to my hotel or they were leaving me.  So I said fuck it and ran about 4 blocks and barely made it in time.  Looking back on that I should’ve said screw it and just paid a cab to take me to the airport.

Conclusion

I was disappointed that there wasn’t a more diverse selection of traffic sources.  Seemed to me the traffic sources were the same ones at ad:tech San Francisco.  There seemed to be a lot of locally-focused booths exhibiting there.  So if you’re in the local affiliate marketing space, you missed out.  I was able to finally meet  a handful of people I’ve been wanting to meet for a while, strengthen existing relationships and most importantly eat chicken and rice, twice!