Florida with ANA

Every year Marcus gets to go an help produce the Association of National Advertisers' annual conference. He's the scriptwriter. For the past two years, it's been at fancy resorts in Florida. This year, it was at the Marriott World Center - you can see the resort and pool here. Marcus worked the show Tuesday to midday Saturday - but he did get to go for a swim after.

The show hall is massive - one of the largest rooms in the country with no support beams of any kind.

And because he was in Florida, and just outside of Disney World - he visited the Boardwalk Resort, where his family are Disney Vacation Club members. A nice, nostalgic night for him on a day rehearsal was done early.

And he brought us back a mickey pumpkin - isn't he cute?

ANA Annual 2014

I recently had a fun opportunity with work - helping with production of the ANA's 2014 Annual Conference. Erica and I thought it would be fun to share a little bit about the experience.

I was put in charge of the scripts for the conference, and spent a good deal of time before writing the comments for the main "MC," the head of the ANA, and a few other individuals. On-site, I worked with the teleprompter operator (she more put up with me and taught me), to keep us on track.

I got to the hotel (after my first work-related airplane ride) and received an upgrade to a suite. I wound up calling back downstairs to make sure it was indeed a free upgrade (they were trying to fill the hotel completely). This is a panorama of the room - pretty huge!

The thing was I didn't get to spend much time there - we were on shift for 16-17 hours each day. Tiresome work, but the show went really well and I wound up meeting most of the speakers as I collected interesting facts about them to be shared on Twitter.

This is a view going into the conference area.

I forgot to get a picture of what the stage looked like but this is a rendering - I sat back behind the main screen.

 Which looked like this from behind.

 This was the view from my room - didn't get to really see it until the day we left though because I was never there during daylight!

 Cheezy...

 A few cool shots of the hotel...

It was a really great experience - and if it works out, maybe I'll go again next year!

Harry Potter

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter is actually just a tiny area inside Universal Studios. I must say, I was a little disappointed at the size, but the amazing details around the park made up for it. One employee told us that they never anticipated so many people visiting the park, so they thought it didn't need to be very big. They were wrong. It's incredible. Everyone should go :) I liked what Marcus said about the park-- apparently, despite all the magic, the Wizarding World has yet to figure out a solution to the humidity problem in Florida. Haha. But you should still go!

I probably have a billion pictures of just this part of the trip. I picked only a couple from each major attraction, so hopefully you'll get the feel.

The Hogwarts Express

Hogwarts

Herbology

(walking through to enter the castle)

Inside the Castle

Dragon Challenge

(awesome roller-coaster)

Entering Hogsmede

Walking Around

(with hundreds/thousands of other people)

Hogs Head

for butterbeer (loved it!)

The Owlry

Dervish and Banges

Ollivanders

Honeydukes

What a great day! Well, great morning three different times :) Due to the crowds, we woke up early to get in line for either the castle ride, roller-coaster, or Ollivanders. But we did it all.

Moral of the story, I LOVE Harry Potter!

Good thing Derek and Cozette do too. :)