A few weeks ago I had the chance to go to Las Vegas as part of my work. I’d never been there before, so going was a real treat. I wrote a few first impressions while I was there and I’m going to add to them here.

These are the times when I almost wish I knew another language well enough to switch the language settings on my iPad. I always feel like somebody is reading over my shoulder. That’s a little something about being at a convention with a few thousand other people… there’s always somebody there.

Being my first time in Las Vegas also makes the whole event a little bit more overwhelming. The scale of things is amazing.

Let me give you a little perspective. The grey blocks are the representation of Ceasar’s Palace in Las Vegas (working with engineers makes scale things like this available – yay!). It’s not the place we stayed, but across the street. Check this out:

The yellow dot is my house. The red square is my daughter’s school and all of the grounds around it. It’s huge. That was the most overwhelming part of the whole thing. The folks that run things out there know how to get people from place to place. The only other place I’ve been that worked that well with that many people was Disney.

Scale works well here most of the time… from time to time it works against everyone. The keynote event today didn’t allow early seating. So literally thousands of people were jammed up at the entry to the main hall. Then the fire alarm went off. Then everybody stood there and resolutely ignored it…. Eventually somebody got that shut off.

So, that’s the first impression. There’s more but I’ll let the size of things sink in.