[Panorama]
8 July 2011
The PSPA Convention took place in Las Vegas in February 2011, here we have a personal view of the event written by Matthew Legge from Cardwell and Simons.
This was my first experience of attending any PMA events; I went to Ballys early on the Friday to scope out where I needed to go and what the procedure was. A very friendly Suzi greeted me and even though I was early for signing in she got me registered and gave me all the literature I needed for the weekend.
The drinks reception on the Friday evening was a great opportunity to say hello to a few people and was a nice start to the weekend. Even though I was there alone the people from Life touch and Kodak welcomed me to come and meet their staff and chat with them.
Over the weekend the seminars I attended were interesting and informative. I found the majority of the speakers interesting, very watchable and they were qualified to speak on their given subjects. The length of each seminar and the break times had been scheduled wonderfully enabling enough information to be given in each talk without the risk of it starting to drag and become tedious. My only criticism would be of the seminar rooms, in the larger ones the single speaker wasn't enough and if you sat on the left hand side of the room it was difficult to hear everything being said (I do however appreciate that the walls were only partitions so there could have been a risk of the sound leaking into the other rooms if there was more speakers).
The lunch was good, again the single speaker in that massive rooms wasn't enough, and it was really tough to hear the person speaking.
The trade show was a great chance to see a selection of companies without the hustle and bustle of the much larger trade shows. The connection with the WPPI was brilliant and being able to go to the larger trade show with my PSPA pass was very convenient.
Overall I felt the weekend was a success and well worth the trip, I left feeling informed and inspired, I would recommend the event to other photographers and would definitely attend again.