Here's my take since I did attend both shows (although I really hadnt planned on the second one)
First - the smoking thing - thats a Westin corporate thing and nobody is gonna smoke in a room and get away with it usually - though they were very leniant about balconies (they even had ashtrays set up on them for the party suites and outside the big ballrooms)
When I first got there (a day early) the cafe outside did not allow smoking - that changed as soon as the hotel became all Internext - badge required - and no restrictions outside whatsoever.
The size - basically if I were a sponsor/program/service - I would run like hell from the showroom floor costs - every one of the sponsors I talked to said it wasnt worth the money and not one said they would get the cost back - of course since its a good tax writeoff - I doubt it made on lick of difference - the cabanas on the other hand were well done and very comparable to the cabanas at XBiz - although both shows really should think about a different time of year as the heat kept most in the pool - who wants to talk biz when sweat is pouring down your face - but still much better than the show floor.
The food and drinks - like mentioned before - XBiz had this organized so much better and with quality food/great atmosphere/great(either lowcost or free) drinks they win hands down - Im not sure what kind of deal AVN has with this hotel in Florida, but I can tell you that the prices did increase for drinks the day the show started by over 200% - the food prices seemed to stay the same - but then they are way overpriced to begin with and no real lowcost food choices on the property. This is another strong point of XBiz's show - venue - while Florida is beautiful and nice beaches/pools - the resort just doesnt have enough "action" and "choice" to be able to compete with a Vegas resort - something (If AVN really is going to consider doing any more shows) that needs to be looked at - with an eye towards finding something else as the resort is probably half the reason people didnt show up for AVN.
Internet - I dont use wireless - so I dont know that part -however I did plug into the hotels high speed cat-5 hockey puck they had on the desk and checked out the cost on the opening landing page - there was a choice for 3Mb or a much higher speed - the 3Mb for me was plenty fast and there was no charge for that - the higher speed did have a charge but I dont know what it was?
Last - there was a definite visible lack of some of the BS at this Internext with people doing stupid stuff - although some of it was still around, I think that there were large groups of people that did not show this time - I noticed a large decline in Gay/Twink population for some reason - although I really enjoy some of their parties, the normal crowd just didnt seem to be there?
The hotel still hasnt figured out that you cant let the general public in at noon on the last day with the show still winding down - way too many kids are exposed to things they shouldnt be
Final comparison - XBiz has the organization, venue, seminars, webmaster interaction, food and drink, parties down perfectly.
AVN - better come up with some brilliant ideas and start thinking about changing the Jan show right now - Mandalay??? What are they thinking?
