Comments on: Is This What It’s Going To Be Like All Weekend?

By: Allen Stern

Allen Stern — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 16:22:38 +0000

yes wifi is very good – was good last year as well

btw – more capcity planning issues? i wanted to buy a book from the 37signals guys to get for a friend signed – and guess what – they sold out yesterday
wtf

By: epc

epc — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 15:28:11 +0000

I will say this: have been mostly satisfied with the wifi at SXSW. Now, I don’t try streaming anything, but have had few problems doing routine stuff.

By: Allen Stern

Allen Stern — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 14:16:53 +0000

it’s not great here either – and i am far outside downtown!

not one person i spoke with used the my.sxsw site – and neither did i.

By: epc

epc — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 14:13:01 +0000

My bandwidth sucks at this hotel, but I wonder if the my.sxsw site gives any indication to how many people expressed interest in an event. They could have used that as a sample to figure out how to allocate space.

By: Allen Stern

Allen Stern — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 13:48:34 +0000

agree completely. although the rooms in the hilton were all packed. i’ve been to what is probably thousands of conferences over the past 20 yrs and i can’t remember the last time i saw a line 200 deep to get into a room for a simple panel.

i can only assume the conference makers are making a boatload of cash this year because of the commercialization of the event.

i think the issue with capacity planning is that it seems like there is no further room to expand. the hotels are even being used to capacity.

By: epc

epc — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 13:22:15 +0000

If they’re going to continue to grow like this they need to do better capacity planning. All of the mobile sessions on Friday were placed in “small” rooms of 200 people, and had at least 200 people queued up to enter after the sessions started, while other sessions were in much larger spaces with much fewer people.