Photo Video West

Pretty disappointed after attending Photo Expo West for a few years. I was so excited that San Diego would again have a photo expo, but when I first walked through the hall, I was quickly at a loss. Where was Nikon, Canon, Wacom, Nik, Epson and everyone else? I go to a photo expo and can’t play with the latest gear? Seminars were ok, but I think a lesser caliber of speakers than in years past. I hope they do better next year.

One of the worst events I’ve ever attended as a vendor.
1.) The event space was a county fairgrounds hall — basically asphalt for ground and very difficult to hear in with all the other events going on inside it. Our group was required to purchase a carpet for our both, yet few others did. Now I see why.
2.) As a vendor, we were required to pay $ 10 per day for parking — seriously? We already paid an arm and a leg for the booth. All other shows I’ve attended have given free parking for vendors.
3.) The «food» selection was deplorable. Firstly, it was a carnival food booth. The items were grotesquely overpriced ($ 5.00 for a small soda, $ 6.00 for a single hot dog?!?) and to boot, the service was pathetic. We waited nearly 30 minutes for our order of a hot dog, fries and a soda. 30 MINUTES where I couldn’t be on the floor at my booth.
4.) We’re still waiting for our leads that we were promised at the end of the show. It’s been over a month. It doesn’t feel like the organization that needs to be there IS there at all.
I would not recommend this show to anyone — either as a vendor or as a consumer. It would be better suited as a portion of the fair itself, not a stand alone.

THE WORST.
I won’t ever waste my money or my time going to an event like this again. I had low expectations going in, but they completely flat-​lined within the first 10 minutes.
Easily the most unprofessional photography/​videography event in existence. I sat in for one seminar called Crazy Stupid Lighting and couldn’t hear harldy anything because the «room» was just a curtained off section of the main room. There was a woman «volunteer» who was incessant about finding seats for latecomers. She had a rude obsession with constantly interrupting people seated all around us (who arrived early/​on time) with questions if seats were taken, if we could move down etc. It was a combination off too much noise /​lack of decent audio for the speaker and the lady volunteer that made it really hard to pay attention to the speaker. The booths were manned with people just throwing free crap at you and not interested in gaining new customers.
I’ll never go back to this event.

Man! I really wanted to like this. I can never afford WPPA in Vegas, so I was hoping this would give me a taste of the whole photo expo circuit type thing but it was really disappointing in my opinion. I went to one seminar «Crazy Stupid Light» which was very informative, so nothing bad to say about the speaker there, although he struggled a lot with sound, a missing pointer, etc (again, not his fault). Also, they were SO obsessed with finding LATE people a seat, that some volunteer lady continually pestered the rows around me (and myself) to «move down two seats» or asked us «Is this seat taken?» over & over. Look, I know standing sucks, but arrive on-​time (or *GASP* early!) and get a seat. Otherwise, stand in the back like a respectful, normal person. Don’t make me scoot & squish & interrupt my LEARNING just to fit others in. This was SO annoying! Also, screaming kids. NOT a place for babies!
Parking was expensive, food was expensive, and vendors were very limited (although I’m loving my new camera bag, not gonna lie). Probably won’t return next year. :(

Normally, I try to report positives about experiences, however, I don’t have any positives to say about your event. It’s my fourth time at this Photo Expo in San Diego, and every year, the same mistakes are made. I’ve been to many professionally run events and this is not one of them. So here you go with my comments:
1) Paying $ 10/​day for parking and $ 12/​day for the event. Del Mar Fairgrounds are ripping people off for parking. There might not be anything you can do about that (except move the event to a Hotel site).
2) The event space: Overall, the event space is horrible. Noisy and almost unimaginable echo-​like in sound quality. All of the events are in the same building (which unfortunately has a concrete floor) and the events, being separated by giant cloth, simply contribute to the noise. Each individual seminar space is negatively impacted by all of the others and even the instructors in each venue were complaining about it.
3) When you schedule a series of training events, you need to be sure each of the separate venues starts and ends at the same time so that people that want to pick and choose can do so conveniently. It makes no sense otherwise and I found that I had to leave in the middle of one event to get to the beginning of another seminar.
4) PLAN for having many more seats in each. Seating is cheap… why in the world would you limit the size of the audience knowing that some will be far more popular than others. It isn’t good P.R. to have either standing room only or have people turned away.
5) PLAN for an hour lunch break say from 12:30 — 1:30 so both your instructors and attendees have a break to get lunch, bathroom, see the demos at lunch.
6) PLAN for a lunch crowd that needs to buy food during that time and FRIKEN staff the vendor lines accordingly. The Del Mar staff was completely stupid (I mean that literally), inept, and acted like it was the first time they’d served food at an event. The one line I stood in for a half hour to get a diet coke and a hot dog took 45 minutes. When I asked one of the supervisors why they had only two people at the cashiers line, she blew me off, ignored the comment and walked away.
7) Why is Del Mar ripping people for Food? I mean they already ripped me for $ 10 for parking. Now they’re charging $ 4.75 for a coke and $ 5 for a corndog or a bottle water? Why?
8) Have the Schedule of seminars readily and easily available on your web site. I even called your office, spoke to one of your people, who told me he didn’t know where the schedule of events was located, promised to call me back, and never did.
9) Do us all a favor. Cancel this event entirely if you’re going to do it again like this. It was awful. Get online at
and talk with Scott Kelby’s people about how to organize an event. And once you do, I pray you schedule it at a local hotel, taking advantage of larger and quiet event spaces. You could actually charge far more for the event and I’m sure people would be willing to pay if the event organized correctly. Also, you would probably attract some quality instructors and WAY bigger attendance from all over the nation if you included some names people actually knew for trainers.
Just my two cents as a member online at
and NAPP, and an attendee at Photoshop World at Orlando, and a Professional Photographer in the San Diego area.
Alan Crosthwaite
858 228‑6411

Drove down Sat from LA– should have stayed home. Went to 4 seminars and a couple were good. Best was «How to shoot Concerts». HDR talk was done by a PROFESSOR! Should have known it would be a waste of time. Only lasted there for about 30 minutes. Show booth lacked manufacturer direct involvement. Mostly retailers with limited knowledge. Film Festival for Students setup was so poor plus used 50″ monitor. I welcome shows like this and hate to be negative but please deliver what you promote.

Awesome seminar by Jack Davis so far!!! Excited for more great workshops!!!

It was cool to see all the cameras and stores and such. Im more of a video guy so i wish they had more video, but then it would be video photo west. I wish they had more interactive things too… but i learned a few things and they had decent seminars.