23 More Days and 10 Free Passes…

…until WPPI (not Disneyland, but it is a Disneyland for photographers). For those of you who are going – kudos! For those of you who are not – how come?

As a sponsor of WPPI, they offered me 10 FREE full registration passes! This is applicable for only those who have not registered. There are no refunds offered for those who already have. Before we get into the guidelines for this giveaway, let me share with you my story.

When Tofurious Was Just An Itty Bitty Baby

Every year around this time, I would hear on Facebook and Twitter about this convention called WPPI where photographers from all corners of the globe convene in Las Vegas – booze, drugs, sex, shows, buffet, lights. Seriously, WPPI at that time was just another excuse to go to the entertainment capital of the world.

For those of you who don’t know, WPPI (Wedding Portrait Photographers International) is a giant convention where many vendors show off their latest stuff. Don’t feel bad, I didn’t have a clue as well. It was about two weeks away from 2009′s convention, and Tofurious was only three weeks old or something, I said, “what the heck, there’s one 10′x10′ spot near Shootsac and I have a few thousand dollars to spare, I’ll take that spot!”

At first, I thought I was just going to have a table and sit there like some of the ugly local bridal conventions here, but I was totally wrong. Everyone had giant hanging displays, custom carpet (apparently MGM’s golden brown was yuck), ridiculously-large-fill-up-my-peripheral-vision-type-televisions, cool bags, and the works.

Fudge.

What did I have? A photo booth…uh, a table, hrm…a few chairs. Yeah.

Here’s the flip side – it opened my eyes. It’s a great place to meet new people – follow the amicable Becker because he always tweets things like “Meet me at the lion at 10am and let’s get coffee,” or something like that. It’s a great place to learn about new products – album companies, proofing stations, workflow management, etc. It’s a great place to do portfolio shoots! The list goes on and on!

Tofurious is Now 1 Year Old and Walking

I’m attending WPPI again this year – booth 1240 (next to Shootsac and ShootQ – two companies I adore). I also have a Bloggers’ Lounge in the main building with free WiFi for your internet convenience.

What will I be presenting? I’ll blog about it this week.

Free Passes For WPPI

Details about passes here – http://www.wppionline.com/storage/lasvegas/home.html – $400 value for non-members

Guidelines:

1. You must not be registered already
2. Make a blog post (on your own site) as to why you want to go to WPPI – make sure to include your email in there somewhere
3. Send me a link to your blog post for consideration
4. Submissions are due this Saturday, Feb 13, 2010

I will announce the winners next week. Good luck!

WPPI is seriously worth going,

Lawrence Chan

P.S. For those asking about the photo booth software, it will be given away for free this convention (courtesy of MBS).

Related Posts:

• Lawrence Chan’s 2011 WPPI Schedule
• Aaron Dieppa – The Big Picture
• The Quiet Forces Behind Great Success
• WPPI 2013: Content Strategy and Social Media
• Fish Where The Fish Are – Modelo Especial