From Monday to Thursday last week I was in Orlando Florida at the annual meeting of the Wedding and Event Videographers Association (WEVA). The expo was held at the brand new Hilton in Orlando. This location is ideal with lots of activities and restaurants nearby. The hotel itself is beautiful and the staff very attentive.
While turnout was down somewhat from last year, the event was still very well attended. The best part however were the seminars. I went there to learn and came away with the feeling that this was the most productive WEVA Expo that I have ever been to. Kudos to Matt and Melissa Davis of Life Stage Videography for their excellent seminar on sales. Shawn Lam from Vancouver gave an outstanding presentation on marketing. Adam Forgione presented a seminar on the short form ceremony edit that had me thinking about things that we can do to improve our Wedding Stories. Cory Rich from Sorenson Media gave a fine presentation on compressing video for the web. Ron and Tasra Dawson did a superb seminar on branding and using social media. I picked up a copy of the Dawson’s new book ReFocus. Finally someone has written a marketing book just for us, the wedding and event videographers. I have not finished it yet, but there are quite a few ideas that will be put into practice here.
No WEVA Expo would be complete without the Greater Philadelphia Videographers Association’s (GPVA) party. This year’s was very well attended and as always, a lot of fun. In addition to the GPVA party, we had a luncheon for Video University forum participants. VU as it is known, is a popular online forum for wedding videographers. I finally got to meet a number of people who I have known for years online.
Overall, I was sorry that the expo was so short. There is so much to learn. Even though business has been down due the the economy I decided to go. It was very much worth the price.
The Video University attendees at the WEVA Expo