- Wichcraft http://wichcraftnyc.com/ (the restaurant) best breakfast deal in MGM! $6 gets you your choice of 3 items (coffee, fresh squeezed OJ, banana/chocolate muffin, croissant, yogurt with granola, fresh fruit). They even went out of their way to make me a foamed hot chocolate as a substitute for the coffee. Everything was so good – I picked up my bag of breakfast goodies EVERY single morning.
Get out of the hotel during the day at least once! Sheesh – with so many classes and events to attend, you hardly have time to leave the convention center. However, I did a morning run and it was so refreshing to get out into the air (even the cold air). This leads to my next tip….
Go on a photography run! This was so much fun, cleared my mind and got my creative juices flowing. After hours and hours of lectures and classes on photography – it was refreshing to just take pictures for the fun of it. This was a great way to start my day and gave me the energy and inspiration I needed for the next 16 hours!
Bring a refillable water bottle and your favorite water flavor packets. WPPI was fabulous about having water stations outside the classrooms with ice cold water. It was perfect for me to fill up my water bottle and carry around to all the events.
Bring a couple of power bars…..it seems you never have time to stop for lunch and the lunch venues are REALLY crowded. The time we had lunch we waited over an hour for our food – time that could be better spent in the trade show or at a class.
Find WPPI buddies to go with. This way you can share transportation, hotel rooms, meals,notes on classes, trade show treats, new friends and party invitations!
Set up your “meet-ups” with friends BEFORE you go to WPPI. With over 10,000 photographers and so much going on, it is hard to figure where, when and how you are going to meet.
Don’t be shy! There are so many cool people to meet here. We would just strike up conversations while waiting in line for classes, waiting in line for food, or we would ask to share tables. We met photographers from all over the world, including South Africa!!
Bring a notebook, pens and your business cards. I was actually really surprised by how many people didn’t bring something to write notes in. We had also heard not to bring your laptop – we can second this now, we never, ever had time to use it.- Be yourself and be comfortable. Okay, this one is probably just for me. I thought I would try to impress by dressing up a bit and wearing my “cute” sandals. That was fine…..but the second day I was wearing my U2 concert shirt and my comfy, custom (thanks to my son Leo) Chuck Taylors. I felt great and had a fabulous time. Go for comfort – you’ll last longer and be more enjoyable to be around..
And because every post needs a picture. Here's one of Kim and I from our friend's at LensBaby.
