Field Notes: 514 Scans, 76 Meetings, and a Room Full of Ice Cream Alter Egos

The third post in our Field Notes series, on what it actually looks like to run events season from the inside.

Last time, I promised I'd report back from the actual week - what broke, what surprised me, and how steep Gus's cheese tax rate got while I was running around Boston. Spoiler: it broke. It also got saved, twice, in ways that only confirmed everything I said in the last post about partners who catch the things you didn't think to ask about.

What broke: a hotel released someone's room the same day they were landing, in a city where every hotel was booked solid for the conference. We tried every hotel in the area (every single one) before finally getting a room back at the Omni, which is where we'd had the reservation in the first place. Full circle, and a great reminder to always have a backup plan (and a lot of patience) during events season.

We also didn't get our signature ice cream sign printed in time for the event - but the Museum of Ice Cream team already had it printed and ready to go. Another quiet reminder that the partners you choose matter more than any checklist: they weren't just executing our plan, they were a step ahead of it.

What surprised me: I had limited time to actually walk the show floor this year - the conversations at our own booth kept flowing, and walking away from a good one felt almost rude. But in the pockets of time I did get, the thing that stuck with me was how many throwback booths there were. A 90s-themed setup with an actual payphone. Records. People got genuinely nostalgic.

And I think that's not a coincidence. It reinforces something we talk about a lot here: earning attention. Nobody wants to stand in front of a screen reading another email they know is part of a sequence, or click through to yet another automated follow-up with ads bolted on. People are craving the version of connection they had in the 90s, when dial-up was basically the soundtrack of being online and calling a number meant an actual human picked up. A payphone booth taps into that better than any polished digital touchpoint could.

The other thing that surprised me: a lot of people told us they come to shows like this with exactly one objective - meet with one type of vendor, hit a specific booth for a specific need, done. Which, for a show that isn't cheap to attend, initially struck me as almost too narrow. But it's actually the whole game. If someone's walking the floor with one goal in mind, earning their attention isn't about being the loudest booth - it's about being the thing that actually matches what they came for.

So, the week happened. Booth. Museum of Ice Cream. CMO dinner. All of it, back to back, exactly as chaotic as advertised. Here's what it actually added up to.

The receipts

I promised numbers in the last post, so here they are, no spin:

• 514 total booth scans
• 76 meetings booked straight from the show floor
• 36 people at the Museum of Ice Cream
• 34 people attended our CMO dinner with Scratch Marketing and n.rich

None of that happens because a booth looked nice for thirty seconds. It happens because a lot of unglamorous things - the patch bar restocked, the Kan Jam not becoming a liability conversation, the shipping actually landing in Boston - went right, quietly, in the background.

And the activations actually delivered. The patch bar kept people at the booth longer than a quick scan-and-go, which meant more real conversations, not just badge taps. Kan Jam turned into its own little draw - people who'd never have stopped otherwise ended up sticking around for a round and then staying for the pitch. But the surprise hit was our frisbee campaign. People loved it enough that they were asking us, unprompted, to send them frisbees. When your swag becomes the thing people are following up about, that's not a fluke - that's the activation working exactly the way you hoped it would.

Shoutout to the BDR on our team who doubled as our photographer for the day - here's the booth in real time:

Museum of Ice Cream: the alter egos got out of hand

I called this one my claim to fame in the last post, and I'm not backing down from that. 36 people showed up, which for a co-hosted evening event mid-conference is a genuinely great turnout - and I owe a huge thank you to Gong, Romify, and Common Room for building this one alongside me.

The bit this time: everyone had to come up with an ice cream name to get in. Mine was Vanilla Ice. We also had a Scoop Dog and a Lil Scoop in the building. I will not be taking questions about how seriously grown adults in B2B marketing debated their ice cream alter egos. I will say it worked - people were laughing before they'd found the ice cream bar.

And honestly, this is one of my favorite parts of doing events like this: you put a slightly ridiculous prompt in front of a room full of marketers and the creativity that comes out is genuinely impressive. These are people who spend their whole day making other things sound clever - give them thirty seconds to name their ice cream alter ego and they treat it like a pitch deck. It's a small thing, but it's a good reminder of why I like this room of people so much.

We had a photographer on-site, so this is less "trust me" and more "here's the proof"

The CMO dinner: same week, completely different gear

34 people attended the dinner we ran with Scratch Marketing and n.rich, and once again it's proof that events season isn't one event repeated twenty times - it's a constant gear-shift. Patch bar and ice cream alter egos one night, a quiet room of CMOs the next.

The Events Hub, quietly doing its job

Small thing, but it's been a genuinely good one: I'm watching our booth shipment make its way back to us in real time through the Events Hub right now. Not "I assume it's coming back at some point" - actually tracked, actually visible.

That matters more than it sounds like, because this is one event out of a quarter that has a million more stacked behind it. I need that inventory back so it can turn around and go straight into the next thing, not sit in a mystery box somewhere while I ping three people asking if it shipped. Watching it come back on its own is exactly the kind of "disappears into the workflow" tool I keep talking about - it's not flashy, it just means one less thing I have to chase.

One more thing before you go

If you posted and tagged Sendoso, Romify, Gong, and Common Room during the week, keep an eye out - we're giving away a Ninja Creami to say thanks for playing along. I’m doing that tomorrow so post away!

What's next

We've got an event every single week from here, so next up is another real-time check-in: what we're running, what shows up along the way - good, bad, ugly, beautiful, and everything in between. No pretending it's all smooth. That's not the point of this series.

And Gus? He hasn't left my side since I got back. Full-time shadow, following me room to room with a look that says he's not entirely convinced I'm staying. Cheese tax rate: still climbing, but I think what he actually wants is proof of life.

More soon - probably somewhere between a booth teardown and a very suspicious dog.

— Danielle

‍