I’m still in Chicago, but just about packed up. As soon as I’ve finished posting this, I’ll stuff the laptop into my backpack and check out of the hotel.
This was an outstanding convention overall, albeit a tad frayed about the edges. This year’s convention was larger than last year’s. The convention center here is beautiful, but panels were spread out over a huge area, which scattered us all a bit. A smaller percentage of the panelists were bloggers, which I think was not a good trend.
Lots of grumbling about FISA and lobbyists, which I’ll post about when I get home.
Still, there’s a lot of spirit and strength of purpose here. I’m very glad I came.
Maha, a YK attendee posted this highly rated diary on DKos, Time To Say What We’ve All Been Thinking About Yearly Kos. FWIW, see what you think.
Safe travels.
Moonbat: I think they are valid criticisms. The venue was beautiful, but panels were so far apart physically the convention felt very scattered. This was not the organizers’ fault, I don’t think. I understand the convention center had promised them something different.
I never did get to the exhibit area.The one time I walked all the way to it, it was closed.
I agree there were too many things going on at times, and that fewer panelists were bloggers.
One thing I found hugely annoying was that there was no panel schedule that explained what each panel was about and who the panelists were. There was just a schedule with names of panels and what rooms they were in. The program gave panelists in alphabetical order, but didn’t say which panels they were on.
I didn’t notice that much cliquishness, or at least no more than I noticed last year. If anything, the hard core Kossacks seemed more clique-y last year than this year.
These are really minor quibbles, though. Overall I think it was a good convention.