I’m triple-barreling this post, which will also serve as a reminder of the sessions I’m planning to attend.

First the survival element:

• Bring business cards, especially if you’d like to drop your name in the running to win a Wii, Xbox, gift card or other incentive the networks are offering. (also known as “offline lead generation”). If you’re selective, I’d think 30-50 business cards are enough. If you’re aggressively giving them out, leaving them on tables, etc, you’d probably need about 10 boxes (1,000 cards).
• Be warm: The weather is pretty cool at this time of the year, bring a jacket if you’re going out in the evenings
• Prep yourself: Prepare a 30 second pitch of what you do and your type of traffic generation, you’ll likely be repeating yourself walking the show floor, attending sessions, at parties, etc. Save the life story if someone is really interested, else a 15-30 second “elevator pitch/synopsis” will suffice.
• Comfortable shoes are a must: Walking shoes: wear them. Your feet will thank you at the end of the day.
• Hydrate yourself: “Las Vegas Throat” is a condition that strikes some, especially with the dry desert air and occasional shouting you’ll have to do. Drink lots of water (or honey and lemon if you can get ahold of it). Else you risk losing your voice at the end of day 1 or 2.
• Max out your carrying capacity: If you’re planning to collect schwag from every exhibitor, you might want to bring a backpack as you’re walking the halls, else you could be weighed down. I think Market Leverage might be rolling out their Cashinator machine, where you grab dollar bills in a vortex of flying money. Good for a few bucks, better for more laughs.

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If you’d like to check out the comprehensive list of sessions, check out the Affiliate Summit agenda.

For parties, Jangro’s “Party A Day” Guide.

For some recommends sessions Angel’s Top 5 ASW09 session picks.

Here’s my session and party guide:

Day 1 (Sun Jan 11 2009):

Meet Market (noon till 6pm, location: Pavilion 8-11): A 1-day meet-and-greet session. You’ll think you can breeze through this area in about an hour, but the reality is that it’ll probably be about 3 hours and you’d have barely made it through half the tables. It’s a good opportunity to (more…)

• affiliate marketing, Internet Marketing
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