Affiliate Summit started in NYC in 2003, but the longest-standing location over the years was Las Vegas. We held Affiliate Summit West 2006 over January 8-10, 2006 at Bally’s Las Vegas.
That was the first year of fifteen straight for affiliate marketers to converge on Vegas shortly after the new year.
We jumped around a lot of hotels in Las Vegas over those fifteen years – Bally’s to the Rio to the Wynn to Caesar’s Palace and then a long residence at Paris.
While the scenery changed from time to time, one thing was consistent and that was the great people who would come from all over the world.
We smiled, we learned, we drank, we laughed, we sang, and we built deeper relationships with each other that have lasted all of these years.
Along the way, we also lost some friends way too early, but we have such rich memories that will last forever.
We started these events with a couple of hundreds of attendees and as we reached the end those numbers were seven-thousand-something. As more and more unfamiliar faces joined in with us, we all made new friends, too. People from about 80 countries getting together for shop talk and fun.
It was very fitting that we wound up Affiliate Summit West 2020 at Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar and Grill – a beautiful going away party drinking bubbles with all of these true, important friends. That night with the people there is something I will always cherish.
We had some great times, didn’t we?
This year marks an end to those experiences and memories with our people… well, at last for our annual get-togethers in Las Vegas in January/February.
We’ll just have to make other plans in the future to catch up and laugh and cry and have a blast.
I think Jim Morrison said it best about our shared end of an era…
“I don’t know what’s gonna happen, but I wanna have my kicks before the whole shithouse goes up in flames.”