Banff Day 1

I finally left the city today around 11:30 AM and made my way down to Banff. I’m here all weekend for nextMEDIA 08. The drive was uneventful, which is always good. It was extremely windy the entire way, with pockets of rain every now and then. It’s hard to describe how amazing the mountains look when you head west out of Calgary. Even with some cloud, they are impressive and humbling.

I’m staying at the Inns of Banff – it’s a nice enough hotel. The conference takes place at the Fairmont Banff Springs – it’s an incredible hotel. You certainly get what you pay for 🙂

After registering and checking out the opening reception (which had free drinks, yay!) I went to help Kris Krug and Megan Cole do a webcast interview with Revision3 CEO Jim Louderback. That was kind of fun, despite the spotty Internet connection. Jim is very personable and engaging. I think he looks kind of like a Hollywood star, actually.

Next I decided to walk around a bit, checking out some shops and seeing what people were up to. I stopped at a place called Timbers for dinner – I’ll be posting a review later. Then after getting a coffee at Starbucks I came across The Underground Studio, an Internet cafe. That’s where I’m sitting at the moment! It’s open until 1 AM every day. Internet access is $4/hour, with an extra single $1 charge if you don’t have your own computer.

Both hotels have free wireless, yet both are very slow and unreliable. I guess it’s one thing to offer free wifi, and quite another to make it usable. Thankfully you can usually find a decent Internet cafe!

I’m very much looking forward to tomorrow, though I know it’ll be busy and tiring!