Not since the Ad Congress started last Wednesday, no. We all went full throttle, drank and danced away into the night, then up at 8am for the early morning sessions. I've never seen so much free booze poured and consumed. Imagine five days of that. You'd think the country's best and most creative minds' saturnalian vacation had finally arrived. Hahaha!
Day 1: November 21, Wednesday
The first day usually meant getting your kits and lecture schedules. Schmoozing with clients and seeing your old office mates who've gone on ahead to become hotshots in other agencies.. It's a sort of industry reunion when you think about it..
But the best thing were the bags and bags of freebies. I love that everyone's just shamelessly demanding free things from the supplier booths! Hahaha! I felt like a grocery lotto winner when I opened all the stuff I got -- from flints, bundles of notepads, new magazine issues, pens, 700 sachets of shampoo.. Sure! Give me more!
The Opening Ceremonies that night was a blast but before we all head out into the night for the first of many drinking parties.. we had to present a tv commercial storyboard to Client. For approval. At 11:00pm. Nice, huh? Anyway, we sold a story before midnight.. so high fives to everyone.
Time to seriously party.
Day 2: November 22, Thursday
My favorite writer in the world was the day's first speaker. Neil Gaiman gave such an inspiring talk.. I wonder how one person could be so brilliant. Mr. Gaiman, may we borrow your brain for a bit?
One of the ushers handed me a paper and said I could ask Neil any question I wanted. I wrote whether he preferred gryphons to unicorns.. Went unread. I suppose the hosts wanted a more "sensible question." Sigh..
Things were quite looking up when we got invites to the GMA party. We met up with some of our clients and it was fun seeing them in casual clothes and not looking like stiffs. Hahaha! They were more plastered than we were! What a mighty fine thing it is when Clients start to act crazy and stupidly drunk. For a change, we were the sensible ones! ;-) I've got pictures to prove things best left and forgotten and which I'm not afraid to use to blackmail them into approving my creatives! (I may be kidding, of course ;-))
