Featured Image: Waiting to cross the street at Figueroa & Chick Hearn Ct. at the L.A. Live complex. Left to right: Crypto.com Arena, Microsoft Center, JW Marriott & Ritz-Carlton Hotels, and a building housing several offices & restaurants. my destination, the Los Angeles Convention Center, is to the left of the arena.
In this three-part blog series and then videos, I am taking you for a look at the media perspective of the Travel & Adventure Show, an open-to-public travel show that helps attendees directly connect with company representatives in the hospitality, travel, and tourism industry from around the world. From up the central coast of California for the Los Angeles show to safari in Africa, they can give you ideas for your next in-state weekend trip to your next big vacation abroad! They have well-renowned speakers from the travel industry experts including Rick Steves of his travel PBS TV series & European tours, Sarah Dandashy of Ask A Concierge, investigative travel journalist Peter Greenberg, Pauline Frommer of Frommer Travel Guides, and more to maximize travel inspiration and experiences. The Los Angeles leg was on February 18th & 19th, at the Los Angeles Convention Center, located next to the Crypto.com Arena in the LA Live Complex.
I have been there and done that as an attendee, as I have been attending the show for the last few years in-person & online. Now with AntSol Travel as a fully-fledged blog & YouTube channel, I can apply to be a media person for the show. So today, I will show what it is like for media for the Travel & Adventure Show, what expectations to set, and advice for the show staff. Let’s get started!
Below was my experience as an attendee from the 2022 Los Angeles leg of the Travel & Adventure Show.
On January 20, 2023, I submitted for media registration, however, the show staff didn’t respond back until ten days before the show. To get media credentials, granted you have a “history” of covering travel stories, you get free admission to the show for two people, and get to interview exhibitors and speakers, the extent you can do is entirely clear. I received confirmation on February 3rd from the public relations person, with information about the media preview at 9:30 am before attendees come in at 10 am. However, there wasn’t any specific information about how to set up appointments for interviews with speakers or which exhibitors are okay with interviews, so I would not be disappointed when they turn me down due to their ill-preparedness for interviews or my fan base being too small, which is mostly 200 followers each on YouTube & Instagram (foreshadowing).
To prep for the show I got a media mod for my GoPro 8, so I can use the auxiliary port for a wireless microphone, and get a new GoPro 9 as the 8 was starting to break down and had power issues that I would not turn on sometimes. I bought a USB battery pack, a gimbal for the GoPro 9, and a tripod for the GoPro 8. I was ready for this to be a huge step forward for my AntSol Travel content.
The Travel & Adventure Show was at the Los Angeles Convention Center, about 33 miles from Anaheim, where I reside. I left at 8:30 am, arrived at the Sheraton Grand Los Angeles where I would stay for the night, parked in the garage since the hotel was sold out last night, and walked with my gear to the convention center. On the way there, a homeless person yelled in the distance for food money while I was marveling at the high rises since there were only a handful of high rises in Anaheim, which are the only hotels at the Anaheim Convention Center. However, I did not see or find them when I heard them. Then they said “I hope you have a terrible day”, which I hope is not a bad omen about my time at the Travel & Adventure Show (foreshadowing?). When I got to the convention center, I realized I had an individual packet of trail mix in my jacket pocket, which I could have given to them.
The Los Angeles Convention Center, located about a mile from the Sheraton, is a convention center that is owned by the City of Los Angeles and operated by Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG), which also owns the whole LA Live complex, comprising Crypto Arena, the convention center, Microsoft Theater, JW Marriott & Ritz-Carlton Hotels, and several buildings in the complex that is rented out to Grammy Museum, ESPN Radio LA, several restaurants, and more. More about that is in the Instagram post below from last year.
The Los Angeles Convention Center is over 720,000 sq. ft. of event space, so much space, there were multiple events happening at the same time. There was the Travel & Adventure Show, the LA Art Show, and the Society for Brain Mapping & Therapeutics Annual Congress. Travel & Adventure Show was in halls G & H, at over 173,000 sq. ft. for exhibitors, and speaker stages according to the convention center website, which is larger than Anaheim’s largest hotel’s event space at the Anaheim Marriott with a total of 170,000 sq. feet.
In the next post, my experience as media at the Travel & Adventure Show, #TravelShowLA!
AntSol Travel 
One response to “Media Perspective of the Los Angeles Travel & Adventure Show: Part 1: Application for Media Pass & Getting to the Show”
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