From a journalist's view there were these: The arena staff did not know there was a press section at the Phillips arena; power strips Microsoft usually provides were not there; the PR team had to call to get the wi-fi password. More visible to keynote attendees should have been the widescreen showing a guy doing a broadcast. However, he could not be heard because there was also something else –a loud rock band, a drum corps, announcements – going on at the same time. Later, questions at the executive Q&A were drowned out by the rock band playing at the AX presentation. Then there are the bland keynotes which makes them seem, as in the Journey song the band played, that they go on and on and on. It is not as clear as it once was why we attend. Plus it's just hard to find people, although my experience suggests those VARs who believe channel attendance is way down are correct. And the show's scale requires everything to be big – long walks to the buffet lines for those first to meals. I asked a staffer. "How far is it to the lunch line?" "I don't know," he replied, "We don't know. No one has ever made it [So I repurposed an old Rodney Dangerfield joke.]