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Well I got to go to the 2007 G2E here in Las Vegas. It's the Global Gaming Expo and is devoted almost entirely (~98%) to the gambling industry and slot machines. It was held at the Las Vegas Convention center just a couple blocks East of the strip right next to the Hilton and the Rivera.

My company paid for all of us to go. And when I mean all of us, I mean the company. Which is pretty amazing since it costs about $1100 per person to send us for the full four days. We were there to see what the competition was doing, get some inspiration and maybe see if any of our patents were being infringed upon.

My company had the second largest booth at the show.

One view of the booth

And another view

The companies just under us in competition had large booths as well. IGT is the biggest. I could not get their whole area in one shot. They had one entire wall at the end of the convention center right across from our booth.

A company whose artwork I always studied at my last job is Williams. This is their booth.

The LV Convention Center is huge. It has four wings and covers about the area of, I would say, 6-7 football fields. G2E filled all of the available space.

While there I was able to meet up with Kevin, my old boss from Suburban. He is now working at Acre Fiore, a subsidiary of Bally Technolgies, one of our competitors. We went to lunch at the Hilton's Star Trek Experience. The entire area is set up to look like the deck of different ships and stations from Star Trek. We ate at Quarks Dinner where we were kept in line by a Borg, served drinks by a Ferengi and waited on by a Vulcan.

Here is the ceiling inside the Star Trek Experience.

All in all, it was great convention. I've never been to something like it before. The only larger one I have been to was PITTcon in Chicago at McCormick Place. That was five days in four halls each of which was about 1/4 mile long by 1000 feet wide with electric taxis to get you around the place.