If you’ve never been to the annual DotNetNuke convention in Las Vegas Nevada your first time there you are going to be overwhelmed. The Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino is enormous, if you’re staying in the Mandalay Bay or THEHotel, plan on giving yourself 10-15 minutes to walk to where the convention is each morning, you won’t go outside, but you’ll definitely go for a hike.
First things first, THEHotel is another hotel (a fancier/pricier one), attached to the casino that is Mandalay Bay, you can think of them as being on opposite corners of a square. The convention center is on one of the corners between the two, if you consider that corner stretched way the hell out of place, and a long way away from the other corners :)
I’ve “enhanced” a map of the grounds that has some extra information on it, here it is
So let me explain what all I’ve put there on the map. The red characters are “meeting points”, often times people will try to meet up with other conference attendees, likely arranged via Twitter. To help those of you who have never been to Vegas I’ve highlighted some of the common meeting points, I’ll list them here and talk about them a bit.
- A – Mandalay Bay Elevators The Mandalay Bay hotel has three elevators, two of which I believe service the hotel rooms. The elevators are arranged in a triangle shape, often times people will meet at the base of these elevators, if my memory serves me the elevators function by floors they service.
- B – THEHotel Elevators THEHotel is part of Mandalay, but a fancier more upscale hotel (MB is pretty damn nice on its own), in the past some people have been put into this hotel when the MB is booked up full, if you luck out and have this happen the elevators from THEHotel are a common meeting point. If you are going to Mixx, the club on top of THEHotel, there is a separate elevator that will take you there, it isn’t with the other elevators.
- C – Bottom of Tram Escalators If you are staying at another hotel on the Strip you might take the tram to the MB, the tram I believe runs from Treasure Island, through the Luxor, and to the Mandalay Bay. This is also a good meeting point if you are going to venture from Mandalay to other casinos via the tram.
- D – Mandalay Bay Taxi Stand If you are coming or going from Mandalay Bay via Taxi this is where you will likely be, if you want to go down the strip this is the fastest way to do so in general, though I always figure it’s gonna run $20 a trip no matter where you go
- D2 – THEHotel Taxi Stand This taxi stand is actually often times easier to get to, and with less of a line, it is actually in the garage attached to Mandalay and THEHotel.
The blue characters are conference specific info, the locations for the conference and expo hall.
- E – Conference Location The conference itself is held on the second floor of the conference center, you would follow the blue lines and head up the escalators to get there, registration is typically up there, along with all of the various rooms for the presentations.
- F – Expo Hall The expo hall is where all the vendor booths will be, the place you get all the free swag. The DNN Booths will be towards the back side, if you see a map we’ll be in booth #617, along with the other DotNetNuke vendors around there as well. The Expo hall is also where the meals are held, lunch, breakfast, etc, so you’ll likely make your way there a few times each day.
HashTag (#DNNCON)
If you are going to be at the conference, and are going to be tweeting, uploading photos, or doing anything else social, I would encourage you to use the hashtag #DNNCON or simply DNNCON if you are tagging photos on Flickr. Some of us started out using #DNNConnections, but to be honest, that’s just too darn long with you are limited to 140 characters! I believe R2I will have their R2ISmash setup again this year, so hopefully they will also use the #DNNCON tag
Flickr Group
If you’re going to be posting photos from the event (I will be taking a lot this year, so watch out) I would encourage you to do so on Flickr, I’ve created a DNNConnections flickr group. Feel free to join up!
Pre Conference Training
If you haven’t signed up for the Pre-Conference training yet you should definitely check it out. I’ll be delivering the session, the topic this year is Develop a DotNetNuke Module from Start to Finish, it is from 9a-4pm on Monday November 1st, the day before the conference, and I believe it also includes lunch!
Conference Registration
If you haven’t registered for the conference yet you better get to it! Visit our Connections ‘10 page for more info and see some of the special offers!