I’ll get right to the point and say that last week’s Phoenix Forum rocked! The organization of the event from start to finish was tight. CCBill did an amazing job of putting it all together, and I would love to thank all the fantastic sponsors who helped make this wonderful mid-sized Webmaster event a total success.I’ll get right to the point and say that last week’s Phoenix Forum rocked! The organization of the event from start to finish was tight. CCBill did an amazing job of putting it all together, and I would love to thank all the fantastic sponsors who helped make this wonderful mid-sized Webmaster event a total success. The Phoenix Forum is growing each year, and with next year marking their fifth year, I will tell you now to think about clearing your schedule the moment you hear when next year’s event is announced.

What made it so great? Often you’ll hear Webmasters judging an event by volume of attendees and craziness of the parties. That’s all fine and dandy if that’s all you are looking to get out of a Webmaster event, but you also have to ask yourself (to draw a comparison here)… do you consider a website successful if it’s all style and no substance with heavy traffic that doesn’t convert? I sure don’t.

For me personally, I look at the big picture when it comes to the true value of a convention:

· Hotel/Venue/Location

Phoenix in April is wonderful. Not too hot during the day, and a nice cool-down at night. The La Posada Resort was decent, the space for seminars, lunch and gatherings was great, and this was the first time to Phoenix for a lot of Webmasters. Getting around was easy, and all of the activity was relatively contained making it hard NOT to see someone. No red tape either!

· Quality of Seminars

There were a nice variety of speakers, the schedule was mostly adhered to, and most of the seminars were impressively spam-free from the panelists. It was nice to see that a significant portion of newbies and oldtimers alike were attending the seminars. I estimate that some of the seminars saw upwards of 200 in attendance.

· Quality and Quantity of Attendees

I estimate that there were around 600 Webmasters who went to the Phoenix Forum. As well, the gay Webmaster community had a very strong presence, accounting for possibly 25% of all the attendees. Meeting people was very relaxed and easy. There were plenty of newbies there and it was very nice being approached by people left and right who recognized me. The ability to network was phenomenal.

· Overall Vibe and Mood

The atmosphere was very relaxing during the day as well as the night. It was about as bullshit-free as adult Webmaster events go. From my standpoint, politics weren’t an issue, Webmasters let their guard down, and I was pleasantly surprised at how some Webmasters have really changed for the better.

· Parties and Sponsored Events

Figuring out what to do for fun was pretty simple. There was either one or two main events happening at any time, and you simply went to them. Whether you did the desert Hummer tour with Goodthinxx or participated in LightspeedCash Paintball, it was nice to see how well sponsored this event was. I suggest you check out the website and see for yourself!

As always everyone had their own highlights and experienced the Phoenix Forum a little differently from the next, but for me, I would just like to say that the dinner sponsored by Hustler Content and WebQuest, the dinner sponsored by TopBucks and the nightly shindigs at the Lightspeed suite were all top notch. The pool parties, the sports party at Coach & Willie’s and all of the other social arrangements helped to make this a very pleasurable and productive event. Pretty much everyone I talked to loved the show.

The only criticism I can offer here that will hopefully help a few people open their eyes, is that buying someone a drink because you want to is great, but offering to do so thinking that it’s a good way of saying thank you to someone who has really hooked your business up at one time or another, or sponsored a killer party, is weak. Alcohol flows “free” like the river Nile at these events, so if you really are interested in returning a favor, send someone traffic, put up their banner, send them joins, put them up in your exits, refer them to others, etc. It speaks infinite volumes louder than “buying” something that is usually already free.

Take someone like Steve Lightspeed for instance. You can pretty much count on the fact that he’ll be sponsoring and hosting the social highlight of any gathering whether it be stunt flights, paintball, or something else your mamma told you not to do. Like many Webmasters in Phoenix last week I spent no fewer than two or three hours every night in his suite raiding his bar, gawking at models, and just generally stinking up the place. The guy always knows how to throw a killer party, so think the next time about how you can really return a favor.

In closing I would like to thank Lisa at DialerDude, Quentin at OneVerify and Rand at Epoch for their excellent seminar coverage contributions to this week’s YNOT NEWS.

Enjoy these pictures:

http://georedirect.com/phoenix/

http://www.forumphotos.com/home.htm

http://www.gaywebmaster.biz/phoenixforum/…

http://www.fubarwebmastersadventures.com/…

http://www.wildoncash.com/events/2003/thephoenix…

… and as always, enjoy this issue! – LAJ

YNOTBob and LAJ flank Ray (Netbilling) at the Phoenix Forum

Photo courtesty of Gateway at GeoRedirect

Jay “LAJ” Kopita is the Executive Editor for YNOT NEWS and the Communications Director for YNOTMASTERS and can be reached at editor@ynotnews.com and jay@ynotmasters.com.