This year was my first year attending the AWS re:Invent conference in Las Vegas. I had been eyeing this conference for a few years, always wanting to go, but for various reasons, it never happened.
However, I did attend the equivalent conferences of Google (Cloud Next) and Microsoft (Ignite), so I thought I knew what to expect.
Boy, was I wrong.
This conference is completely different from the other conferences. The major differentiating factor is its size – about 60,000 attendees flood the La Vegas strip, which means that the conference is spread across multiple hotels and venues.
What that also means is that you must plan ahead in order to maximize the conference. Don’t do what I did – quickly go through the agenda and put on your calendar the sessions that you want to attend. That, as I found out, just doesn’t work.
So for those of you who plan to attend future AWS re:Invent events, or even those who have attended before but want to make the next time better – I prepared a guide that will help you, and me, come better prepared the next time we’ll attend one of the largest conferences on the globus.
Now, the original plan was to write a blog post covering all the aspects of the conference and providing tips for each one of them. Alas, after writing the first section I found out that putting all this in a single post will create a Britannica-worthy article that no one is going to read to the end, so I decided instead to make a series of posts, each covers a specific topic.
And the first topic I’m going to cover in this first post is – Hotels.
So buckle up, and let’s go.
Hotels
One of the most important factors of the conference, a factor that affects almost all other aspects of the conference plan, is that the conference spans multiple hotels. This is not usually the case with other conferences, especially considering that the Vegas hotels are among the largest in the world (did you know that of the 10 largest hotels in the world, 5 are in Vegas?). For example, the Google Cloud Next conference was located in the Mandalay Bay hotel, which, even though it is a huge one, is still just one hotel.
The hotels in re:Invent are separated into two types: There are venue hotels, and then there are sleeping hotels.
The venue hotels are where all the action happens. You’ll find there the sessions, keynotes, expo, meetups, meals and all the other stuff that’s part of the conference content. This is where you’ll spend most of your time at the conference.
Sleeping hotels are exactly that – hotels that can be booked using the conference registration process for your stay during the conference. Of course, you’re free to go to whatever hotel you want in Vegas, and you don’t have to book one of the sleeping hotels, but it’s a good idea to take a look at the hotels offered by the conference.
So, these are the venue and sleeping hotels of AWS re:Invent:
This diagram, which was included in the re:Invent website, shows the hotels participating in the conference, along with their type.
As you can see, there 6 venue hotels, and 10 sleeping hotels.
Note that the Caesars Forum is not a hotel, just a conference center, and also that Wynn and Encore are basically the same hotel. Encore is a wing of the Wynn hotel.
And that, of course, brings us to the first question we need to discuss about the conference, which is…
At which hotel should I stay?
Needless to say, there are quite a few hotels on the Vegas strip, and your choice of hotel depends on quite a few factors. Are you looking for great nightlife? Restaurants? Casinos?
But this post is about the conference, and therefore I’m going to answer this question assuming we’re interested in the conference, its locations, and transportation.
On a first glance you might think that the best hotel to stay at is one of the venue hotels – Encore\Wynn, The Venetian (note that it’s not one of the sleeping hotel), MGM or Mandalay. After all, it’s best to stay at a hotel that also has the sessions, isn’t it?
Well, it isn’t.
After putting a lot of thought into it, harnessing my previous visits to Vegas and, admittedly, having some luck, I decided to go for The LINQ hotel.
And here are the reasons:
- Proximity to sessions, keynotes and events – The main hotel of the conference is The Venetian. This is where the keynotes happen, it has the largest dining room, it has the merchandise store, the partners expo and more. It’s quite apparent that this is where most of the action happens.
Next in line is the Caesars Forum. Many sessions, big dining room, the Sports Forum, and more. Now, here’s the thing: The Venetian is HUGE. As in – really huge. How huge? It’s the 3rd largest hotel in the world. That huge. And that means that in order to go from your room to the conference center, you’re going to walk A LOT. And if you want to go to the Caesars Forum – well, you can do that, but then you’ll need to walk even more.
On the other hand, The LINQ is in a perfect location. It’s connected to the Caesars Forum, so the sessions there are basically within 5 minutes’ walk, and you can also go from there to The Venetian through a bridge connecting the Caesars Forum and The Venetian. So – it’s close to the Caesars Forum, and also close to the Venetian, all within a walking distance. Which brings us to the second reason, which is…
- Proximity to the monorail – I’ll discuss the transportation aspects later in this series, but the TLDR is quite simple – whenever possible, use the monorail for transportation, not the conference shuttles. And This is where the LINQ really shines. It has a monorail station just two minutes’ walk from the towers (that’s where the rooms are located). The station is within the building so no need to go outside to the cold (and it’s going to be cold out there…), and is located between the hotel and the Caesars Forum. Extremely convenient and useful.
- Sensible pricing – The LINQ is not the flashiest hotel in the strip, and so its price. It’s sensibly priced, and you can get upgraded rooms without selling your house. So compared to The Venetian, Bellagio, Mandalay Bay and more – it offers a better tradeoff.
Add to that the fact that The LINQ is a relatively quiet hotel without the crowds you usually find at the Bellagio or The Venetian, and its advantages just become clearer.
Note also that there’s the Harrah hotel, which is connected to The LINQ and has the same walking distance to the monorail, Caesars Forum and The Venetian as The LINQ. It might be worth consideration. I’ve never stayed at it so can’t comment on its qualities.
So – that was the first part in the AWS re:Invent Know Before You Go series. The next part is going to discuss transportation. You’re going to want to read it, b/c this is what might make or break your conference experience.
