ASW 09 Recap with Epic Pictures

Affiliate Summit 2009 Recap

I had to break this recap writeup into several posts because the trip was just too epic, and there was so many things going on all the time that I wanted to make sure nothing got left out. Although that might be hard to do considering the amounts of alcohol I ingested during my stay.

Well I made it back in one piece with a mild migraine a little bit of disdain for coach seating, but all in all no complaints since I didn’t end up in the Hudson.  So after touching down in Vegas, taking a cab from the strip to the palms, I was greeted by a sexy latina maid who obviously didn’t know she would be cleaning my room at the end of the week, and impromptu handed me a full bottle of Captain Morgan spiced rum.. A nice start to my trip Id say. From here I cruised to the strip, checked out the AVN porn convention, met kid rock (who’s girlfriend was undoubtedly checking my shit) and proceeded to stumble over to rain nightclub in the palms where I was zombified but still managed to enjoy the flaming atmosphere.

After my eventful Friday night, I prepared for the first actual full day, and the arrival of my fellow affiliates and networks.  I woke up late, then headed over to the Rio where not too many people had arrived yet, so I got into the 1/3 hold’em game and made a couple hundred before heading over to TGIF to meet up with a bunch of my fellow affiliate elites.  I was greeted by Eli from bluehatseo who insisted on hugging it out bitch, over the proverbial handshake.  Nick Mattern aka bbwolfe was shit wasted talking shit about some WP Plugin, and a few other guys from #cakes chat were there kicking the shit.  I pounded back a few drinks, then prepped for the Wickedfire pre-summit meetup.

Wickedfire Pre Affiliate Summit Meet Up (Tangy,Lacrosse_20, Me, Bryn)

After the initial meet-up, and meeting a lot of really cool people with money on their mind, I headed back to my room where I had to get ready to meet-up with HustlinGrind for my first night of mayhem. Suited up I strolled by about 100 people waiting to get into Rain Nightclub @ the Palms, where Paul Oakenfold was set to tear up the club. I was lead upstairs to a skybooth where the gold patron was already poppin and the party was gettin started.

Oakenfold Performing

Flames from above the dance floor

At this point the actual affiliate summit hadn’t even started yet, and I was having the time of my life.  The club was amazing, and I was already partying it up with some great affiliates.  I left the club early for an after party with some ladies who apparently didn’t want to stop because they had the insight to show us around town, and proceeded to drive us over to Studio 54 at 5am for an all nighter.

Definitely not a bad time for my first full day of ASW. Day 2 didn’t start until late partly due to the fact that I didnt get in until 7am.  So for the first full day of the actual conference I only really went for about half an hour, met some AM’s, got some free beer to fix the hangover, and made plans for that evening as it was already late afternoon by the time I was leaving the summit. About 10 or so of us were at the Rio waiting for a shuttle bus that took us to the Advaliant red rock mansion party, where supposedly 80 dancers awaited (yeah right).

entering the red rock mansion

Upon arriving at the red rock party, we were greeted by free cigars and an open bar, not a bad opener if you ask me.  As for the promised dancers, well they were nowhere to be found, and it was the usual affiliate marketing sausage fest.  I mingled for a bit, met some cool people, played some pool, and got my fair share of the open bar. I stumbled my way over to a couple poker tables they had set up only to find out they were playing for FREE?! (A giant WTF goes off in my head)

one of the poker tables

I proceeded to infiltrate the game and convince everyone to put $20 down, since no one wanted to play for more.  After much deliberation we got about 9 players in the game, and I was off and running.  I musta had luck on my side, because I played like a total donkey and somehow took it down. Around the time I was finishing the poker game, the man, the myth, the legend, Nicky Cakes showed up, too bad for him though, he brought his girlfriend.

From here I went outside to find the usual crew of hoodlums up to no good.  We decided we were gonna take a limo to Body English @ the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, which sounded good to me, since I was pretty drunk at this point, anywhere with girls would suffice. It also proved for a good photo opportunity.

eric aka tangy pimped out

lacrosse_20 & cracked content totally gone

me and mystery the PUA

I decided to convince Mystery the big pimp dude to roll with us, figuring his skills would surround me with glorious women all night, but boy was I wrong.  The guy decided to hang out with this one chick the whole night and didn’t share with any of us.  Anyway we got to the club, they said they were full until I demanded 5 bottles of goose, at which point we were promptly let to a private booth a couple booths down from E-40.  Pretty much everything at Body English was a total blur to me, all i remember is running around with a bottle of Greygoose and bringing girls back to our booth, total madness.

Once the smoke had cleared, the club was closing and everyone was heading their seperate ways, except for me, Rocco (ironlogik), mystery and his chick.  So we went upstairs to the 11th floor where there was an apparent after party in one of the suites. We somehow lost Mystery and his chick but wound up inside this private suite with a live DJ and a bowling alley, not to mention girls dancing on poles and total debauchery everywhere.  I cant remember much, but what I do remember was bowling a strike between some hot girls legs, somehow, and this is one of those stories that stays in Vegas.

rocco (iron logik) and some ladies

After getting back to the palms it was about 8am and I was shit wasted, I walked up to the roulette table and put $100 on black just to see if I could hit, I mean I had bowled a strike earlier and won a poker game piss drunk, I should be able to do this. But alas the casino edged me out when it bounced out of black into a red square at the last second, my signal to go pass out.

Day 3 rolled around and I finally made it to the conference around 3 in the afternoon, once everything seemed to be dying down, and after such an epic night i was simply taking it easy.  I hit the conference for a bit, grabbed some affiliate schwag, and then went to the poker tables to try and recoup my losses from the previous nights festivities. After a few hours and up a couple hundred I left the poker room at the Rio and met up with team Canada and shoe money’s crew for a limo ride to spearmint rhino, spared no expense.

Upon my arrival to the rhino we got a bottle of goose, and just lounged back and tried to resist the temptation to drop thousands of dollars on scantily clad women.  I find that if you just talk to the hired guns as if they are normal people, you can end up getting much more than a lap dance if you know what I mean.  Ten free lap dances later I got up to find everyone missing, cue the Vegas girls I had met down there to come pick my drunk ass up.  We made our way back to the palms where there was a shitload of people trying to get into the Copeac invite only party, of which I forgot to get an invite for.  After attempting to bribe the bouncer to let me up and failing miserably, I went to the playboy club for some drinks and more scantily clad women (of which there is no shortage in Vegas).  At this point a bunch of people were gathering to head over to XS nightclub which was apparently one of the hottest new spots in Vegas, I however was totally burned from the last two all nighters and decided to crash early, or else I wouldn’t make it through the next day.  And so drew an uneventful close to my night.

The last day of the conference allowed me to sober up a little bit from all the past days/nights festivities and recoup for what we actually came to Vegas for, networking with affiliates and networks.  I hit the floor early and made a point of talking to and meeting my AM’s from Neverblue, Maxbounty, Copeac, A4D and C2M.  Out of all of them, Id have to give C2M the nod for being the coolest, most down to earth network out there. With Ads 4 Dough a close second.  They dont bullshit when it comes to your offers, and they are straight up and will simply tell it to you like it is, something that has dissappeared in this industry.  So its nice to meet some real people in this industry that aren’t just money hungry and only looking out for themselves, because lets be honest here, none of those networks would be anywhere if it wasn’t for their affiliates.

After about 3 laps of the exhibit hall, and about 30 business cards later, I decided to call it a day, and headed back to my Palms suite to see what kind of trouble I could get in that evening.