My trip to Las Vegas for the Affiliate Summit West 2015 conference has come and gone and so has my very first opportunity to host a large conference. I figured I’d do a post-mortem, so here it is.
I thought you’d be taller
I was surprised that the emcee duties weren’t as involved as I thought they were. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, just that I thought it would be more work. There was very little prep and it was more of just a ‘show up and do your thing’ -type of attitude, which worked well for me. It also gave me time to meet with clients and do the other work that I’d normally do as just an attendee.
The 2-drink minimum now makes sense
Another first for this trip was doing comedy in front of an audience before noon. I grossly underestimated the importance of time and setting when it comes to making people laugh. Getting them to do so at 11am in Las Vegas the morning after a big party is pretty much a suicide mission. To top it off, I did 5 minutes of marketing and industry jokes. Afterwards, I received a lot of great feedback. During, I heard few laughs. The second day I did more ‘material’ and got a much better response.
The edge of madness
This was a marketing conference and one of the biggest (if not the biggest) in the sector, so it pulls people from all walks of life and all over the country. As I said, the first day I did marketing and industry jokes, with the meat of my set comparing the industry to the guys in Las Vegas who stand on the sidewalks handing out those porn cards (if you’ve never been to Vegas, it’s not worth explaining). Anyway, that’s as dirty as my set got. Porn. The word. No descriptions, no nothing. Later in the day, I spoke to some of my colleagues who received feedback from those that attended that I was ‘edgy’ and that I ‘pushed the envelope.’ I couldn’t believe it. So the next day I did jokes about cocaine and my penis.
Fin
Overall, this was an unbelievable experience and one that I’m so thankful that I received. I’m hoping that I’ll have the opportunity to do it again, whether it’s for the Affiliate Summit or otherwise. Like anything else, the more I do it, the better I think I’ll be.