Friday, April 20, 2007

NAB Wrap Up

That week went by incredibly fast. It was an outstanding week for The 4EVER Group, as we met with many vendors and made plans for their participation in our events and activities. We saw old friends throughout the week, and made new ones as well. We even got to watch as vendors punked each other during their presentations.

Let’s start with a couple of random sports notes. Tony Gwynn was at the Sony booth on Monday, autographing baseballs and posing for pictures. Tony was pretty much mobbed during the time he was there. One of our well-known presenters, Randy Stubbs, is a huge Padres fan, so I was able to get an extra autographed ball for him. Last night, we saw Pete Rose at a table in a memorabilia shop. Other than the store employees who were having their picture taken with him, Pete was all alone. It made for an interesting contrast.

Clearly, The 4EVER Group has made an impact with the vendors. Going into our third year, we’ve been sought out by some, and others could not have been more willing to get on board with us. Keep an eye out for those new developments within the next few weeks.

The continuing growth in the relationships we have with the vendors is the best result from this conference. My business card pile is probably smaller than in years past, but it was very targeted: Adobe, Anton/Bauer, Apple, Audio-Technica, Avid Blackmagic Design, Canon, Grass Valley, JVC, NewBay Media, Panasonic, Sennheiser, Sony, the Vitec Group and Zylight were among the many vendors we met with. We can’t count on all of them participating in every part of The 4EVER Group’s programming, we’ll certainly see them involved at some level.

So it’s an afternoon flight home, to be followed by a weekend of catching up on stuff at home. I’m hoping that the airport lines are back to what passes for normal today.

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