SES London 2009

Well I am back from SES and thought I would do a small write up of how things went. I think it would be good to divide up the week into three sections, lets call them: -

The Good
The Bad
The Ugly

Ok here goes with…

The Good
As a conference SES is a great experience, there seemed to be less exhibitors this year but that meant it was easier to connect and find the people you wanted to see.

The sessions were all good as ever and even though I was sitting covering some fairly basic things for SearchMarketingGurus there is always something in them that makes you think. Felt a bit embarassed when Dixon said I didnt need to be in his session but even in that there were points that will lead me to look again at how I do things.

Socialising in the evenings was good too, got to meet some new people and to finally say hi to a couple of people who I have chatted to online for sometime but not managed to meet face to face.

Good to catch up with: -
JasonD, Dixon, Li Evans, Ben / Karl / Stephen
Shame I missed speaking to: -
The Ayima chaps, Dave Naylor, Jay Butler, Lindop
And great to meet face to face even if briefly: -
Jane Copland, Pierre from Cli.gs, Judith Lewis

The Bad
Please dont be offended but… I hate London. I really really hate the place. Everyone I know in London I like but as a place its impersonal, dirty, dangerous and makes me want to get out straight away.
Just the thought of going on the Tube again fills me with anxiety

One drunken man on the tube asked me “DO YOU THINK TODAY IS A GOOD DAY FOR ME TO DIE!” – I suggested that without a clear idea of his calendar it was hard to tell (He staggered away)

Id also suggest that some of the sessions need a refresh as we had a small amount of content that looked like last years. That said the vast majority was new and very good…

The Ugly
I decided I would try a different Hotel down the road from the conference centre and on the second night when I got back to my room something was missing…

Any guesses??

Nope you’re way way off.

I was missing my CURTAINS – curtains ffs why would anyone remove the curtains??
Reception didnt know (They didnt even believe me until I dragged them up to the room) and they didnt have any spare rooms or spare curtains.

The window was too big to drape anything over and to make things worse my room was next to a bus stop so every 3 minutes the entire top deck of a bus would be staring in at me….

So that coupled with the fact that the 24 Hour Mini Cab place next door seemed to attract people carrying weapons and a grievance meant that I only got to sleep after 5:30am and the sun woke me again sometime just after 6:30am.. urrggggghhh

So I battled through the next day then decided that I had to head home, didnt want to risk another night in that hotel and therefore missed LondonSEO which was very very annoying.

So my main tip for SES next time?
Go if you can its always worth it
Make sure that you check where I am staying and avoid that hotel like the plague…

People that know me well often suggest that I write a booklet on where not to stay in the UK….

UPDATE:

Just to add a little extra to this story as people seem to enjoy my misfortune…

On a previous visit to London I chose a cheap hotel for the night that had ‘Newly refurbished’ and an artists impression of the rooms.

Looks ok I thought and booked…

When I got there I soon realised the following: -

A. The artists impression was how they wanted it to look if their lives had turned out better than it had.

B. The room was a 10ft square Cell with bars on the window

C. The ‘wet room’ bath pod wasnt in fact one of those new slot in self contained bathrooms you see in french hotels but in fact was a Very Large Pine Wardrobe….

THAT THEY HAD TILED ON THE INSIDE

You slid the door open and it had a hose poking through the ceiling that was supposed to be the shower and a sign that read

“Guests are reminded to remove the toilet roll when showering as replacements cannot be issued”

When you stood in the thing and slid the door closed it was pitch black and rather unpleasant.

I have many more of these stories sadly…..