Friday, February 10, 2012

IFB Conference 2012: The Bad, The Good and The FABULOUS!

The IFB Conference is officially over and I am now back in Texas.  I would be sad, except the weather here is so, so much nicer, that I can't be anything but happy to be home and have spent last night wrapped up in the warmth of my bed (and Mr. F, he's so hot and I lurve him.) This was my first IFB Conference and it was wonderful to know what to expect in case I want to try this again.  I will go through the bad (there was some), the good (there was a lot!) and the truly FABULOUS!
The Bad: If you sell 200 tickets (or 500 or 1,000) you need to have an actual seat for everyone who has a ticket, even if they arrive just in time or late. There needs to be a chair for everyone that purchased a ticket.  I flew from Texas and paid for two nights in a hotel in NYC to not miss a thing and because my calendar was on Texas time, I was an hour late to all things this week!  I thought I was an hour early, but was really exactly on time and there were no chairs left.  To me, that was not worth the cost.  I could have stayed home and watched the livestream from the comfort of my bed instead of STANDING in 4inch heels for the entire morning.  Likewise for the goodie bags.  Once people started leaving and I was able to get a seat (and put my things down) I was able to start mingling and talking to other bloggers and some of the volunteers.  The volunteers were incredible and had to be at the venue early, EARLY in the morning.  They worked their butts off tracking down chairs and setting up lunch as well as running the microphones during the panels.  I heard from one of them that they didn't get any of the goodie bags (neither did the phenomenal panelists) so I gave one of the volunteers an extra ticket I had.  She went to turn in the ticket and they were out of goodie bags! There should have been one goodie bag for every ticket sold.  What if my other blogger friend had come late?  That is completely unacceptable.  Maybe I would feel differently if I lived in NYC or if the conference had been in Dallas, but since I don't and it wasn't, I felt that these two seemingly small things did not justify the expense that went into attending the conference.
J Brand Jacket that I now MUST have!
The Good: The sponsors and the swag bags.  The sponsors did a terrific job of keeping us attendees as comfortable as possible.  Arizona Tea had plenty of, you guessed it, tea for everyone during the entire event and they gave out some great canvas tote bags to haul everything around.  Fashion Traffic handed out complimentary hot chocolate for those of us who were oh so cold and explained their affiliate networks to bloggers on an individual basis.  Lyst had charging stations for all our technology and J Brand let us play and try on their new ready to wear line during the conference.  Design Within Reach had the most comfortable couches and now I that I finally finished making my home a neutral and soothing place to be, I realize all I need is COLOR!
Photo by Shari-Ana of The Little Things via Instagram
The swag bags that we each got (if you were there on time!) were fantastic! They included Glamour Magazine, a pretty softcover notebook, a neon lazer cut clutch from ASOS, ThinkThin nutritional bars that made up for breakfast, Makeup by MakeupForever, Zoya nail polish and remover, plus gift cards and certificates to LifeBooker, Just Fabulous, and the pièce de résistance in all our bags: an Erickson Beamon piece by Bauble Bar for everyone! I received a gorgeous pair of earrings that I will show you all very soon, but everyone received a different item.  The photo above was taken by Shari-Ana of The Little Things and I "borrowed" it because I didn't photograph the goodies before I either ate them or used them.  Oops!
With fellow blogger Alexandra Amarotico of SheisRed.com
The FABULOUS:  Getting to know so many bloggers in person that I already felt like I knew!  They really deserve their own posts, because that was REALLY my absolute favorite thing and it made all the stuff I wrote up there on the bad, subside momentarily and it wasn't so bad because I got to meet ALL of these incredible people with amazing blogs.  The best part is that everyone is just like their blog, which is wonderful because I was really interested in meeting them because of their blog!
Also, the panelists.  Oh my goodness, I would have stood ALL DAY if Macala Wright, BryanBoy, Aliza Richt of DKNY, Karen Moon and Tom and Lorenzo had just stayed up there talking! I loved all the panels, but theirs made me learn so much and I didn't even realize it until I was looking at my twitter feed later. I was laughing so much the entire time, but I realized that I tweeted more of their tidbits than during any other panel.  This has to be the highlight of the conference for me: listening to them and realizing I've been reading them all this time.  Macala writes for fashionablymarketing.me and I love her writing, I just didn't know it was her until I went to look her up on Twitter.  I recently became obsessed with PanAm and Tom and Lorenzo wrote an article on PanAm vs. The Playboy Club that I often quote to friends about why I really, REALLY don't want ABC to cancel this new favorite show of mine!  They also used to do recaps of all the episodes which is why I finally decided to sit down and watch all of them and now I desperately want this show to be renewed.
With Bryan of BryanBoy.  See how I look somewhat normal sized here?
In addition, to the above panelists, I loved finding new bloggers that I hadn't read before, but I should have been reading all along! Andy of The Style Scrapbook, Nicollete Mason (my new girl crush) who says what we are all thinking but don't want to say on subjects like copycat bloggers, spam commenters and all other topics, and of course, Wendy Nguyen of Wendy's Lookbook who I've been reading for a while now and is just as sweet in person as she is on her blog.  PS-I got to meet Mystery Man!
With Wendy of Wendy's Lookbook, I would like to point out that she is teeny-tiny and I am not.
Overall, I would say that I LOVED IFB and it was a wonderful first blogging conference experience for me.  I'm glad that I ended up going alone because again, had anyone taken me up on my offer to blow off work for a few days and traipse over New York with me, I might not have done as much on my own.  I will have a separate post later about what I actually learned during the conference.  This post kinda got away from me, oops!

10 comments:

  1. So cool you met Bryanboy! I hope you had a great time there!

    maisondepaul.blogspot.com

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    1. Hi Paul! Bryan was so FUNNY during his panel, he had everyone laughing and he was very sweet and patient with everyone who wanted to take a photo or chat with him. It was great!

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    1. You, too! Thank you so much for all your help and just for being such fun company! I loved it!

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  3. This was a really great rundown of the event. It sucks that you used to much money and came from so far not to have a seat. I watched from home in MD. Great article!

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    1. Other than that, the conference was actually terrific and I loved it. Now I know that I have to reset my calendar and I HAVE to get there EARLY for the next one, because I am definitely going again!

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  4. It was such a pleasure meeting you! Glad we had our little coat rack/chair with us in the back even though we were standing. Love the recap and photos. I wanna go back!

    xoxo
    Sandra

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    1. Hi Sandra! I know, we definitely made the best of it. It was great to meet you and I really hope that we run into each other at other events!

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  5. Wow,so great photos and thanks for your honest opinion of this event!Have a lovely weekend.
    xoxo Sabrina

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    1. Thanks, Sabrina! I had such a great time! Maybe one day you can fly over here and we can finally meet you in person, too!

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