My dad works for the university of the arts in Center City Philadelphia. The school started getting a booth at this graphics and animation conference last year, and they sent my dad because he works with tools associated with media arts. Anyway, this year dad brought me along. So now I'm sitting here watching them take down the booth that I sat at for many an hour handing out brochures. It was an amazing experience. I'm going to name a few companies that will give you some idea of the turn out:

Pixar
Disney
Softimage
Google
HP
Daz
Sony Pictures Imageworks
Autodesk
Form Z
Blue Sky Studios (ice age)
Dreamworks

...and many more.

So I learned tons just walking around and talking to people, but the best part was tehe free stuff! They call it swag. I got swag from pixar and google and a bunch of nameless companies. From pixar, the traditional walking teapot that comes in different designs every year. This year it has a chef hat on it because of ratatouille. And a ratouille poster that has Remi pinned to the wall by knives and says, "he's dying to be a chef!" Actually I have 4 of those and 4 teapots and 2 ratatouille baseball caps. I love swag. Google handed out a bunch of tshirts. I have two each of two different ones and my dad has one and I got one for my sister. Google also has these really swanky pens. I got tons so I can hand them out to friends when I get back. There's more stuff, but this will be getting boring for you guys. I don't know how I'm going to get this all back to philadelphia (btw I'm in San Diego, California) because Dad insisted on all carryon luggage... so I have to fit it all in the two smallish bags I brought. I'll mannage it somehow. I'll probably won't update more about the show later... but as of now I have the best intentions.

Anna