GDCNext what's that?

I got an invite yesterday to meet up with someone from Marmalade at the Los Angeles Convention center. I was a bit bemused at first wondering what on earth he meant. I wasn't aware of any show going on at this time.

So I quickly looked up GDCNext on the internet and to my pleasant surprise and also chagrin I discovered that there is indeed a GDC and ADC going on in LA at this time. I looked over the list of exhibitors and also browsed the conference titles themselves. All very exciting for someone in my position, as this GDC really seemed to have a great focus on Indie and Tablet development. Right up my alley as they say. Still I have an important meeting at work and Wednesdays are pretty hectic for me with my family commitments and such, but the dates for the event ran from Tuesday through Thursday.. I must be good right?

Next up was to check prices, as I really only want to visit all the exhibitors and talk to a lot of people about middleware and opportunities for promotion, publication, hardware and other help wherever possible. I didn't need the 1K tickets, the conferences will have to wait for another year. Yet when I went to look at buying the expo floor passes, I was dismayed to discover they do not cover Thursday, only in fact Tuesday and Wednesday. what a downer, as there is really is no way for me to make Wednesday at such short notice.

I am very excited this event is now local to me, and I really would love to talk to real people about my situation and how I could help these publishers etc and how they could help me. I love the idea of getting in a mutually appealing relationship with a publisher for example. I guess I will have to wait for the next one, which right now seems a very long time away.

My only wish is that I had noticed this event coming up a week ago, as I would have been there and of course promoting it on my twitter so I could hopefully meet up with as many of my peers as possible. so many of my Indie peers still engage on Twitter and I have never managed to meet any of them... yet!

Laters
Da Voodoochief