Well, indeed…. We disappeared off the radar for a bit there, eh!? We were super busy in Salt Lake City and then came back to base to firstly illness for the boss, later deafness and a huge pile of quotes and work to get on with. Our heads are now just about back above the water level and we have lots of exciting news which we will hopefully be announcing soon.
RootsTech seems like years ago rather than just over a month. It was the first time ever that FWL had exhibited anywhere. We hadn’t even had a small stand/booth in the UK. So, it was “go big or go home”… and we really went big. Bronze sponsorship of the event gave us four 10 x 10 booths which we filled with two smashing double-sided banners (thanks to N3 Display Graphics) and heaps of promotional material. We were constantly busy over the three days, talking to conference attendees and other vendors, with lots of new relationships built during the event.
Ribbons and pens are definitely popular in the US and thankfully, we had both, in our brand purple colour of course! We were delighted to be invited to some special events and #MiniMDFWL was a hit on her first outings, with many people suggesting she should have her own social media accounts, blog etc. We don’t want her getting too big for her boots, so she’ll be sticking with the core FWL team for now!
We could tell you lots of stories of RootsTech but the most amusing parts were our travels. As we were waiting to take off at LAX, our genie mates who had already arrived in SLC were warning us of lots of snow and lots of accidents on the roads. The boss was due to collect a hire car and drive to our rented home (after a long day of travelling). When we arrived, we decided to go for it and proceed with Plan A and drove very cautiously to our destination. ‘Slip road’ developed a very different meaning that night!
And then our return flight left us quite literally breathless…. Our flight from SLC to Seattle was really badly delayed and we were in the penultimate row of seats on the plane. There were about eight of us who needed to get the Heathrow flight and the crew asked if other passengers could kindly let us off the aircraft first. This worked well until we realised that the overhead locker where @HistoryLady2013’s luggage was stowed was locked! However, we resolved this quickly but were halted by Sister Something-or-Another from the LDS Church decided we had already left the plane and stood fast in the middle of the aisle. I explained quickly that clearly, as there was no-one ahead of her, we hadn’t managed to get off the plane and she stepped aside (slowly) so we and our fellow passengers could run across the airport. We just made it onto our connection flight.
Some challenges, lots of fun and games in SLC and we are already considering plans for 2019. Why would you not want to be at the biggest genealogy conference in the world??? We have lessons to learn for next year and reviews to be done (as the conference organising team will be doing too).
Where is the next genealogy event you’ll be attending?
