November 1, 2016: SpiceWorld

Today is the “first day” of SpiceWorld 2016.  This is my eighth year in Austin and my ninth time attending SpiceWorld overall.

We got up in the EconoLodge in Temple, Texas this morning, maybe around nine.  It was a bit after that that we got onto the road to drive down to Austin.

By noon I was checked into the Hyatt Place near the Austin Convention Center and over to Max’s Wine Diver for the Stumble Inn Brunch event that we have been putting on for many years.  We had quite a good turn out this year, nearly twenty I believe.  Had lunch and drinks there, but no cocktails because even though they were advertising their new cocktails, they had no ability to make any of them.  It was weird.

After the brunch I got some time to chill at the hotel and then went over to do the check in at the main conference hall and, as usual, got sucked into a million conversations over there and was not able to come back for a long time.

This year was a bit odd with no opening event at all and just an open time to hang out with the vendors on the show floor.  It was off and felt like they just phoned things in.

After the “opening sales event” we all went to the Handlebar as usual and had a good time, although it started to rain on us tonight and we got quite wet.

We ended up going to Touche’s tonight, even though it was not planned, because even when I do not direct people there, loads of people go there anyway and ask why we are not there.