Conventional Wisdom

Yeah, it got a bit cramped over there.  I mean, it’s always been a little snug at peak hours, but this year in particular I just couldn’t handle the crowd levels for more than a few minutes at a time.  I dunno if it was because that many people were afraid of getting yelled at by hotel staff, or if the event had really just outgrown the Galleria THAT badly, but it just wasn’t any fun to be in the convention center for long stretches of the weekend.  They had people directing traffic to keep lines from blocking halls and one-way doors where you wouldn’t expect the doors to only allow people one way and all that good stuff.  Heck, I couldn’t even dip over there to take pictures most of the time, because the traffic in the halls was just too bad to ask people to stop.

All that to say, I can totally see why AWA is moving to the BIG convention center downtown.