After some difficulty getting to MIX, due to freezing rain in Cleveland Tuesday afternoon that resulted in all flights being cancelled, Craig and I arrived at MIX Wednesday morning in time to catch the last 20 minutes or so of ScottGu’s keynote. It was worth watching, as Scott was being cast for a performer position in Cirque du Soleil, for which he demonstrated his mad juggling skills. The bit was entertaining if nothing else. Unfortunately, we missed the advertising demos that Vertigo had put together which were shown earlier in the keynote, but I’ll be sure to watch them later as the keynotes and sessions are all available on the MIX website.

Most of Wednesday I spent hanging out with other Regional Director friends of mine. We don’t often get to hang out except at conferences like this, so it’s always a good time to catch up with people. I did go to one session on Silverlight Advertising which was very good (and which I’m going to want slides and code from), but that was the only session I attended.

The party last night at Tao was pretty cool. The food was good, and upstairs at Tao Beach, an open air club on the 4th floor, the music wasn’t too loud so people could actually carry on conversations. I missed the previous two MIX events so I can’t compare it with past parties, but I think they did a very good job with this one. I’ve also been very impressed with the hotel. I’ve been to Vegas in the past for DevConnections shows, and they have always put me and other speakers up at the conference hotel, Mandalay Bay. MIX is in the Venetian and that’s where I’m staying, and the rooms (suites) are huge and extremely lush and extravagent. I’m told The Hotel at Mandalay Bay is probably similar, but from what I understand all of the rooms at the Venetian are suites like this one (I did not go for anything beyond the standard conference room). The hotel is beautifully decorated, as you would expect, too, and again I think it outdoes Mandalay Bay in this respect.

Overall it’s been a fun show so far and I’m going to sessions all day today (starting in about half an hour) so I’ll try to post more about what I see later on if I have time.