Jon Hartman is ready for SIA, and he will not be sorry for partying
SIA is fast approaching and that means that unless you own a company or are a buyer for a big shop (I guarantee you are neither) you are heading to the show to get hammered. Now lets talk rule #1, everyone is there to do business but you, I don’t care if you have a promo or whatever, no one cares, you have a much better shot of making a good impression by not harassing people, drinking beer and having a good time, hell it has always worked for me, which is why this is a guide to boozing at SIA.
Now lets get to the brass tax, the show itself. First off, Denver is not Vegas. I love Denver, it is my home city, it is great but it isn’t Vegas, so you can’t just be drinking wherever you want in the trade show, they are real Nazis about that. However with careful planning you can avoid the Stazi and get drunk all day. Lesson 1, at 4:00 business breaks down as people start to get their buzz on till late into the evening. It is a good bet to hang out over in the snowboard section around this time as the kegs will start appearing aplenty, bands set up and things are dumped out. This is not to say that there aren’t some good keggers on the ski side like Tomahawk and Moment for instance (in$$$$$$$entive), but for the most part the snowboard side is a good bet. Another option for the long span of the day is to sneak in booze, a tell tale sign for security is a non-convention center beer so do your studying the first day, generally they sell plastic bottle Budwiser in the convention center so roll up the street to the liquor store and pick yourself up a case*, throw it in your backpack and be slightly discrete and you will be boozing all day. You can also sneak in liquor just be discrete when taking pulls. Another lesson to remember is not to be afraid to be blackout in the trade show, no matter how drunk you are someone at the party will always be drunker.
