What was everyone else's impressions of HOPE this year? For me, I was pretty exhausted. Guy I roomed with snored a bunch and I drank too much caffeene making it hard to sleep. I took the DC Metro and Amtrak up which was a new experience (though I have used both before, not both in this manner.) That was neat, and NYC is usually fun. Event wise, I thought the variety of talks was pretty awesome. I only saw some talks (Will watch videos later of others I was interested in) and it's always hit or miss but no complaints. And the schedule was packed! The hotel... yea check in was horrible, the room was horrible. HOPE has a cool DIY feel in it's space but the rest of the venue is bad. I like a few aspects of the space but hate other aspects of the space. Having one track 19 floors away from the other track generates lots of cross traffic and elevator needs. I couldn't get a feeling how well attendance went. It felt like it was down from 2016. But Manning talk filled all the rooms I think? 2nd floor seemed pretty dead. Segway thing is 10 years old or more now. There was the soldering area, which is cool but the floor was so bright -- if some of the lighting done in the talk rooms was done on the 2nd floor it would have been a bit better. Having seen so many neat things on 2nd floor in the past there just wasn't much new stuff this year. I'm not knocking VCF or ToooL or Tommy's Holograms. But I dunno. Zero new. And the hammocks... eeeek. Price point got a bit high this year, I understand it's the big city and inflation and all that. At the end of the day, I realize it's the hotel that makes most of the money not the event. I tell myself I go to see friends, and always that is the best aspect of it. But I dunno it seems like something was missing. Maybe it's the elaborate logos and designs of years past weren't present? Dunno, just curious other's opinions. Maybe I was just really tired :-)