Cisco Live - The Complaints

You should know by now that I always find something to complain about.  Is that a bad thing?  Probably.  Does it help improve things?  Absolutely!

Again, I love going to Cisco Live every year.  Without question, it’s my favorite event of the year.  It’s a great event with great people and great things to do.  With that said, let’s look at what could have been a bit better this year.

• Seating – There was a terrible lack of seating around the convention center this year.  I spent a good part of the time standing around when I wasn’t in a session, which is not good for a lazy, fat guy like me.  We’re talking standing for 5 days here.  In the past, there have been plenty of places to sit throughout the event, so I don’t really know what happened here.
• Logistics at the CAE – This happens every year.  You’re told to go in one gate at the CAE, but no one listens or your information is wrong; you wind up standing in line behind 18849298 people who were all behind you at one point.  Then you have to get your bag searched.  Then they take half your swag because it’s against the venue’s rules to allow things like selfie sticks in (No, I did not get a selfie stick!  LOL).  It’s very frustrating every year.
• Meals – The meals have continued to decline in quality.  I’m sure it’s about saving some pennies, but I had nothing but vegetarian box lunches and 8 oz Diet Coke bottles all week.  I finally gave up toward the end and just went out with the guys on the Social Events pass.  A nice, hot meal like in Vegas 2011 would be quite nice, Cisco!
• The Cisco Events app – This is a great app, but it has some big flaws.  For one, you can remove a session from your schedule by accidentally hitting a button on the session page.  No confirmation.  Just gone.  Second, this thing updates all the time.  It’s a content push, but maybe less than 25 times per days would be a good target.  It also buzzes by default when there’s an update available…at 6am local time!  That’s easily fixed but still woke me up once.

That should do it.  Maybe someone will read and listen.

Send any first-class tickets to Las Vegas questions to me.