Sacramento Event

I am curious as to what everyone thought about the Sac. event.  The presentations were much more interesting than the ones presented in San Ramon last year, especially the Plastic Surgeons.  I was extremely disappointed by how unorganized it was though.   Starting so late Friday night because the organizers went wine tasting and did not give themselves enough time to get from Napa to Sacramento by 7(that is what one lady said she heard some of the OH staff saying to each other around 7:00), don't know if that is true or not but the event started so late that a number of people came in, ate then left because they got tired of waiting.  The Sat. morning breakout sessions started so late that people again got bored while waiting and left and whose idea was it to put 2 Plastic Surgeons back to back in the same breakout room to discuss the same subject?  People heard it the first time so they were walking out on the second presentation because they had just heard the same info.
The information provided was much better than past presentations I have been to but more work needs to be done on organization and advertising to get the word out. 

This was my first event, and I was a little confused.  In some respects, a lot of it seemed like nothing but advertising at first.  I was only there on Saturday.  I got there in time for Colleen Cook, hoping to hear some wisdom on habits that would help me be successful.  I was rather disappointed.  I absolutely loved Dave Fouts, the bariatric chef.  I learned so much that I was very happy to buy his book.  I went to a breakout session with Eric Mariotti, even though I'm nowhere near ready for PS, and found it very educational.  I really enjoyed Ramon Lopez's talk about his experiences and the the pitfalls to watch for postop. 

Yes, things were running late on Saturday.  It made it a little difficult to figure out when things were starting in other locations.

The place I was most discouraged was the vendor mall.  I guess I expected more presence from the manufacturers of WLS products, not candles and makeup.  The vendor mall was also much smaller than I expected.  Since there are so many products available, I'd hoped to be able to get some samples to see if I should buy various brands of proteins, energy bars, RTDs, etc.  The majority of the samples came from the bags provided by OH, and were very much appreciated.  Since I'm so new to all this, I just wanted more info about what the differences were between products, and actually had some of my questions answered by Dave Fouts, who wasn't pushing any of the products.

All in all, I'm glad I went, and I think I'll probably go to San Ramon.

Carol

I was looking forward to more vendors as well.  I agree that Dave, Ramon and Dr. Mariotti had excellent presentations.  I am a little prejudiced toward Dr. Mariotti because he is my surgeon and several of my body parts are in his presentation.  It would have been nice if they had some vitamin vendors there as well.

What samples did they actually give.... bc when I went to the lat one I had tons of samples.. Sonds like they went skimpy.  But again my hubby went with me before so double the samples ha ha.  Jess

I was actually very pleased with the Sacramento event (which was my first).  I have attended a lot of other conferences (not WLS related) and found this one to be quite well organized and executed.  Every event I have been to has run late at some point, so I don't usually get stressed.

Highlights:
Chef Dave
Dr. Mariotti
Ramon
Colleen
Meeting new folks - yakking and laughing
Great coffee :0)

Areas to improve:
More vendors
Presentations on nutrition & vitamin supplementation
Presentations on emotional aspects

All in all - a great first OH conference experiences for us!

Cathy C.

This was my first event and I have to say that I was marginally disappointed. Too many plastic surgeons!!!!! More everyday information would have been much more useful...things like eating and maintaining long term. Chef Dave was awesome!! Presentations like that are what I went hoping to see. Overall organization could have been better.
The vendors were sparse to say the least, and many were not really on point. I would have been interested in seeing more products geared toward us...The Body Shop just didn't tickle my fancy. Of the two product samples in the bag, I did like the bars. I detest coffee, but won a case of Achieve One...at least my kids like it. It was worth going just to meet some new people, though. Hopefully the LA event will be worth the trip.

~Suz