I appreciate your insight and feedback on the problems at BlogWorld. Let me see if I can clarify some issues.

* I didn’t witness the problem with the registration computers first hand. If it was a temporary glitch, it happens.

* I heard about the lunch ticket problem from several people, even ended up giving away one of mine. I don’t think attendees knew if lunch was offered, where to get it, if it was free, and how to get a ticket. An advance e-mail or Web notice could help clarify these issues.

* An attendee told me that he/she saw signs going up Thursday morning after the event had started.

* Compounding the audio problem during Thursday’s lunch keynote was a BlogWorld staffer berating attendees for talking during the keynote. I believe they were talking because they couldn’t hear a thing. Their silence would’ve meant nothing, since they still wouldn’t have been able to hear the address. It’s one thing to tackle audio problems, quite another to shift the blame to paying attendees. It definitely left a bad impression on many of us.

* The author arrived to find no chairs, no books and no signs. He had to find a staffer and get everything into place minutes before his signing.

* When I would ask about who or where to turn in evaluation forms, staff members would often be puzzled by such a question. It wasn’t clear if they should take them, and what would happen to them. No boxes or bins were set up to collect them passively (I seem to recall there were bins in 2008). I felt like I almost had to put the form in their hands to get them to take them.

* In my opinion, the one-page schedule handouts were poorly designed, offered little or no information and seemed to duplicate the program books. I certainly felt like I got the short end of the stick here, since my program title was on those handouts, but didn’t match what was in the program.

I think you’ll find if you do more research, you’ll uncover other attendee problems, suggestions and compliments. I’m just one opinion.

It sounds like BlogWorld needs to give answers on panels sooner, be clearer about what compensation will be available for panelists, and better communication overall would solve the issue. Is that correct?

An additional track to consider is a Blogging 101 track. While I have been blogging for almost 5 years and have a substantial following, you’d be surprised how little I know about pretty much all other than posting. It’s scary, actually.

My husband and I attended bwe to get a better handle on both the business and technical end of things and found right away we were in over our heads. Most sessions were 301 and 401 courses. (Wade’s was a 101/201 and quite helpful.)

We did learn some things, but mostly via osmosis and repetition of thought in various sessions. I do plan to come back next year, but dialing down some of the sessions – even a 1-day track – for newbies or old dogs who want to learn new tricks would be most welcomed.

Thanks for your consideration.

The Registration Computers were up and running and tested on Wednesday. For whatever reason there was a problem Thursday morning first thing, but it was fixed within 20 minutes. It happens at events all the time. We registered 900 people on Thursday, 400 of them within the first hour and a half of registration being open. That’s a very good turn rate for any event.

Lunch Tickets were available first thing Thursday morning. I am not sure what the confusion was there other that some temporary staff possibly being confused in the morning. This is a fact of life in events at convention centers. We are forced to hire staff from the official venue agency and there is always some weeding out of bad staff, and additional training despite the full days training they receive the day before the show.

All signage was in place Wednesday night.

There definitely was an audio problem with the Thursday afternoon keynote. Unfortunately these things happen sometimes. We had Freeman AV staff and the Las Vegas Convention Center staff working on fixing the problem the moment it happened. We would have delayed the keynote to get the problem fixed if we weren’t on such a tight schedule.

I was not aware of this issue on-site, but I know the chairs and tables were set Wednesday night. I saw them myself. Which is even more confusing that they wouldn’t be available Friday morning unless someone made off with the chairs which does happen. The book store was located directly adjacent to the book signing area. I’m not sure why the books wouldn’t be available.

Can you tell me who was confused about where to turn in the evaluation forms? We had very knowledgeable staff on-site and you are the first person to mention this. We had a significant increase of evaluation forms turned in this year over 2008. Again temporary staff can get confused no matter how many times we explain the process to them but we always have our own staff there to support them.

As to the session descriptions, that’s definitely true and goes to the problem we addressed in your first post.

We did have one page handouts available for each day’s schedule on-site at registration, at the publication bins, and in the seminar area.

I understand when things don’t go as planned and decisions need to be put off, but a bit more communication on their end (and responsiveness to emails inquiring about the status of things) would go a long way.