Only three more days before J-Vicious and I head to Vegas for the Interbike show. I finally received the show program in the mail, but I've got to tell you there is only slightly more information in the print program then there is on the Web site. What little information there is on the Web site is either out of date or incomplete. For example, on the OutDoor Demo page, both the directions and trail maps documents are from 2004. Now I'm sure that not much has changed regarding the trails, however, the directions document has last year's dates on it.
It looks like the Seminars, Clinics, and Events page was finally updated in the last day or two. It seems that the listing of events is for 2005, however, the page's introduction reads "below is a listing of seminars, clinics and special events that took place at Interbike 2004." Which is it?
Inconsistencies like these run rampant across the site, making an attendees pre-show planning experience extremely frustrating. As a result of this confusion, I have had to call the firm that handles registration for Interbike several times to confirm various things. Now the people I have talked to have been very nice and as helpful as they could be, yet I could hear the phone ringing off the hook in the background. If they only updated the site early and often they could cut those calls down dramatically.
I can't help but draw parallels between my experiences in preparing for this show with those of Comdex a few years ago. For those that don't know, Comdex was a technology conference that was one of the largest industry shows in the world. The show is now defunct. The show got so big it essentially collapsed under its own weight. The company running the show simply could not keep the quality high as it grew and the experience sufferred significantly. I hope this is not the case at Interbike.
Anyway, I'm still really excited about the show. J and I are cooking up some fun ways to report what we learn so stay tuned.
