RootsTech – Day 1 It Begins!!

Thursday 12th of February was the first day of RootsTech. The first day that talks started, and the first day that the Expo Hall was open for business. And to say it was a crazy day would be an understatement. The place was swarming with people.

The day started early with my roommate Helen Smith and I up early to be in time for the Geneablogger Tour of the Expo Hall at 7.30am. Paul Nauta from FamilySearch was our tour guide, and lead a bunch of maybe 40-50 bloggers around explaining how there was over 180 exhibitors, and based on those who had pre-registered for RootsTech, they come from 37 different countries.

Everything about this conference is HUGE. The size of the Expo Hall, the number of talks, the number of people – even the facilities!! A Media Lounge for the Ambassadors of the conference, that is all the Official bloggers, as well as Official Tweeters and Facebookers. There was a Cyber Cafe where anyway can go an get free drinks, as well sit down and recharge your device/s. That is if you could find a seat. Then there was the demo theatre. This wasn’t some little room to do product demos. Nooooo. This was in the Expo Hall iteself, and has a heap of super comfy lounge chairs that you could sit on while listening to the vendors do their sales pitch.

There were multiple scanning areas around the hall. And FamilySearch even had “Phone A Relative” which was all about phoning a reli, asking them questions about their part, and recording the conversation. They also had “Share a Memory” booth. These were soundproof booths for you to go and verbally record your memories, and if you felt a sudden urge for hopscotch, video games or a game of pool – they had them there too.

Sounds cool eh? It is. And there simply isn’t anything like this a any genie event in Australia. And sadly I doubt there ever will be. So to give you a feel for it, here’s a few pics …

The tour took us backstage behind the main theater, and were then given prime seats for the first keynote speaker (Tan Le). This room alone can hold about 5000 people. And it sure looks like it!! It’s HUGE.

After the geneablogger tour, I nipped back to finish setting up our stand, to prepare for the day …

It was quite crazy and busy So many people stopped by to see what we do, and most totally love the idea of genealogy and cruising.

We also displayed our Unlock the Past guide books as well, though we weren’t selling them, as Maia’s Books (a bookseller in the US who exhibited was), so we sent a lot of people her way – and she did well selling out of some.

There were four of us working on the stand: Alan Phillips, Helen Smith, Paul Milner and myself (Alona), although we weren’t all there together. Dick Eastman also came and helped out when he had some time.

When he wasn’t helping answer queries about the cruises, Paul was in demand for signing his books!

To finish up here’s a few comments, and photos from the day:

“THIS IS A CANDY STORE,
A REALLY, REALLY BIG CANDY STORE”

– attendee at RootsTech 2015

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“WHERE DO I START?”

 – said by someone in reference to the hugeness of the Expo Hall

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“ARE YOU SERIOUS? GENEALOGY AND CRUISING!!
THAT IS SO AWESOME”

– attendee at RootsTech 2015

And I do have to mention the American lady I met, whose son lives at Golden Grove in South Australia, so knew all about our recent fires. And was asking me about it when she found out I was from nearby. Sometimes the world is a smaller than it seems.

Stay tuned for Day 2s report soon …

4 Responses to “RootsTech – Day 1 It Begins!!”

1. Jill Ball says:

   February 16, 2015 at 10:04 am

   You told me about things I didn’t manage to see. Thanks, Alona

   Reply
   • Alona says:

     February 16, 2015 at 5:14 pm

     There was simply SOOOOO much there, no-one could see everything. Glad I was able to show you something that you had missed.

     Reply
2. Sharon says:

   February 16, 2015 at 11:10 pm

   Thank you Alona. I have now put Rootstech on my bucket list!

   Reply
3. GenieJen says:

   February 17, 2015 at 3:07 pm

   Thanks again for sharing so we can participate virtually. Must be an amazing experience.

   Reply