5 Things I Learned From TBEX (Without Actually Going to TBEX)

This weekend in Toronto was the annual Travel Bloggers Exchange conference, or TBEX as it's more commonly known. Thousands of travel bloggers gathered at the Metro Convention Center to learn, listen, and be inspired by some of the most successful writers in the industry. It was, by all accounts, one of the most motivational events of the year in the blogging world, leading people to rethink and reimagine their entire concept of what a website should be, almost guaranteeing that great things will come from the participants in this weekends exchange.

I stayed home. Not that I didn't want to attend, I most certainly did, but the last couple weeks of the school year are never a great time for me to get away (I've got Grade 6 camp coming up again this week) so I missed out. That doesn't mean I couldn't follow along though. If there's one thing travel bloggers are good at, it's spreading information. Simply following the hashtag #TBEX on Twitter this weekend brought plenty of new information to light, and although I probably didn't get the full scope of the conference, I definitely learned a few things from the comfort of my own bed.  Here's five of the most important things I took away from following the TBEX crowd this weekend:

There can't be any alcohol left in Toronto

Seriously. I haven't done the math, but I'm pretty sure if I added up the value of the drinks tweeted about this weekend that we'd have enough money to bail out the entire European Union. Or pay off my credit cards. Either or. 

Photo by Rick A.

Travel bloggers can find their way around new cities blindfolded, but they can't find each other in the same room

A sample string of Tweets that I followed this weekend:

Blogger A: @Blogger B, Where are you?
Blogger B: I'm in the North Hall. Where are you? 
Blogger A: I'm in the South Hall. How do I get to you?
Blogger B: Walk North.
Blogger A: Which way is North?
Blogger B: I don't know. It's up on a map.
Blogger A: I'll walk towards you and you walk towards me. We'll meet in the middle OK?
Blogger B: OK

time passes....

Blogger A: @Blogger B, Where are you?
Blogger B: I'm in the South Hall. Where are you?
Blogger A: I'm in the North Hall.

I really hope these two eventually found each other, but if there's anybody still left in Toronto maybe someone should do a sweep of the North and South halls, just to be safe.

There is no conceivable angle that the CN Tower has not been photographed from

Kind of by definition, travel bloggers take a lot of pictures. Put a large group of them in a city with one major landmark that's visible from almost anywhere and you'll end up with thousands upon thousands of photographs, each of them being tweeted out as they're taken. My favorite was the guy who kept labeling his pictures as the "CB Tower". Maybe he was trying to attract some truckers to his Twitter following.

Photo by Wladyslaw

Attending a blogging conference is a highly competitive event

If all you needed from the conference was the key points then you had no need to actually be at TBEX. Any time a major point was made, the race was on to see who would be the first to tweet it out. Even more so should the speaker happen to say something funny. I have visions of the keynote speaker standing in front of their audience, concentrating very hard on their speech, when suddenly, just after making their main point, the room would light up with the electronic light from hundreds of cell phones being pulled out to retweet the speaker's last comment. I suppose blogging speakers get used to that sort of thing, but it would throw me for a loop. The first thing I'd think of is "Oh no, I've had a wardrobe malfunction!"

The Four Seasons Toronto was way, way over capacity this weekend

I don't know how many people were sharing, but the Four Seasons Toronto only has 259 rooms yet there were at least a thousand people raving about what a fantastic room they had there. It's hard to keep exact track with all the retweeting going on, but I'm pretty sure there was at least one room that had enough bloggers crashing in it to bring each person's nightly share down into the single digits. Which really just explains where all the money for alcohol came from doesn't it? 

Written by Steve Pratt