Photographers from all over the world come for the education, networking, new products and services and, of course, for the fun! I registered for a Full Platform Pass, which includes five days of education, access to over 80 Platform classes, a three-day pass to the expo, plus admission to The University for School and Sports Photography, the keynote, special events and more.
My friends Jennie and Misha planned this trip for us in advance, so I didn't have to do anything else but to pack my clothes, food and show up at Jennie's house on Sunday 6th of March and after our wonderful husbands helped us to pack everything neatly in the car, we were ready to hit the road. Jennie was bringing her 3months old daughter with her and her mom was suppose to flight in the evening from Florida to help out with her beautiful granddaughter, but somehow she missed the flight and she had to wait for another one for the next day.. (what a bummer to start with). Misha had a wedding the previews night and her back was really hurting and me, pregnant.. :-) What a trio-and a half ;-)
Luckily for us, Jenaveve fell asleep shortly after we left San Diego and she slept for almost 4hours (we had to check on her, if she is still breathing :-) haha). The trip was fun and exciting. When we arrived to the motel 6 (just across the street from MGM, where the conference+EXPO was presented), we just registered and went to the restaurant to meet up with Jennie's friend who took us to a cool Vietnamese restaurant, where we ordered wonderful Vietnamese soup Phở. It was a great choice and after the day of traveling and not eating anything "proper" except some snacks, me, as a pregnant lady, I was super happy and satisfied.
And since I was sharing room with Misha (who is also Czech chick like me), we were up late, talking and talking. So the next day, we had hard time to get up early for a class that started at 8:30.
It was Jerry Ghionis's class - an Australian wedding photographer, who teaches and takes pictures for many years. It was fun start (even though, it took us almost half hour to get in, because the class was full). We also got a little notebooks that were very practical to use during the whole WPPI conference at some other classes for notes.
I think, that for me was the most important part to go to the classes, get inspired, get some new ideas and great tips and trick for marketing, sales and all that jazz. I didn't come to Vegas to buy some new things (even though, there are very good deals). But at one of the last class, I won a year membership to use ANIMOTO, which is a cloud-based video creation service that produces video from photos, video clips, and music into video slideshows. That was super exciting news for me, because I actually was looking into getting some new application to create fun slideshows for my friends and clients.
Plus how exciting, to win anything, since there were around 300people at that class and only 10people won something... Huraaaaaa :)
The last evening, we went to Bellagio hotel just for fun, to see the fountain in an action and took some fun pictures. After that, we went to the Awards evening, where was some good food and fun (also with the Darth Wader).
Overall experience in Vegas was fun, educating, connecting with people and myself. Super inspiring, exciting and really inspired to be more creative and active in my art.
I'm sure, that the fruit of this conference will bring a lot of happiness and fun not just to me, but many people around.
