VMworld 2009: Hey VMware / Moscone WTF?!? My Rant
First off, I want to say that this is my first time in San Fransisco. It seems to be a great city, but I don’t have time to do any site-seeing. The Moscone Center, although small compared to the Las Vegas venues, seems to be able to accommodate all of the sessions. Somehow, the Labs ended up a couple blocks away at the Mariott instead of around the corner in Moscone West.
So, now for my rant, and I will repeat this on the overall survey when I get the email:
Hey Food Service – How about some coffee at 7:00am ?!? I found five coffee urns that were empty. WHat the hell is up with that? When I get my “breakfast” (Well discuss this next) I like coffee!
How about “breakfast”? Little donuts and muffins do not cut it. Last year, we had hot breakfast, cereal, yogurt, etc. SOme protien is nice to start a big day of walking miles back and forth in the Moscone Center.
Did you get some lunch on Tuesday? I went to the Moscone meal area at about 12:45 and they only had a few veggie meals. I had to find this little building about a block away only to find veggie meals. On to the Mariott – found a Rainbow Beef and Rubber Cheese sammich. All the freaking soda was diet!
Then there was the rumbling mob of fat geeks fighting over the candy bars in the afternoon. Coffee urns were empty again.
So, I stop into the View Design Session and there are cookies and soda in the back of the room. Slightly nice touch. But don’t clean it up in the middle of the session and shut up! I find it very distracting listening to ten conversations and a VMware Engineer trying to teach me something.
It is a damn shame. The Moscone Center is nice, the sessions are excellent, the attendees and most of the staff are great. These few little things can ruin a good experience for some…
UPDATE: I thought Moscone was reforming its ways with the food. Everything was a little better on Wednesday. At least there was coffee in the morning and the lunch was OK for a box lunch…BUT today, they “ran out of juice” at breakfast. There was none. I was maybe the 100th person in line. Hey VMware, if you’re going to cut costs, maybe we can have a few local cover bands instead of Foreigner, which is really a bunch of old dudes (like me) and a guys who is trying to be like Lou Graham in his heyday.
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The coffee games frustrated me. Coffee in the AM at breakfast, then water until after lunchtime where they bring out coffee briefly and then in a rush seem to send it away. They have done this at every VMworld I’ve been to including Europe 2009. Stop the damned coffee games and just leave it out. Replenish when it runs out. Ice cream bars were gone this year unlike previous years but it’s not like I need those. I can take ‘em or leave ‘em.
I couldn’t agree more. This was my first vmworld… I wasn’t impressed by the venue. Too much bullshit to go through for a cheap box lunch and random snacks. And yes, the staff was always messing around in the back or around the sessions and making noise… stfu, indeed.
The cost cutting was very obvious, next time just warn us where you decide to trim the costs so we’ll bring a brown bag and a steal the coffee maker from our hotel rooms.