#IRCE18 A No Go
Friends. If you are an adventurer, you have to be mentally and emotionally prepared for failure. I have experienced it many times in my various video contests. And it looks like once again the cruel mistress of fate has struck down another adventure before it could begin.
I am not going to the IRCE18 this year in Chicago.
I have no one to blame, but myself.
Mostly because how amazing I am.
As you may have noticed from my paltry IRCE Go Fund Me Page, not very many people, if any, wanted postcards from me while I am visiting Chicago, except my fellow adventurers Neil and Sebastian Hunt. So with that in mind, I had to retool my plan. I wasn't going to be flying, so I was going to take the train. I likely wasn't going to stay at the Regency Hyatt and taking advantage of their shuttle buses, I was going to crash at a fellow adventurer's house and uber it in daily. The trip wasn't going to be paid for but paid out of pocket.
The key to this plan was getting into the conference. Any Tom, Dick, Neil, and Sebastian Hunt can attend the conference. However, if you are not an actual online retailer where you can sell stuff online, the tickets are four times more expensive. This expense completely sinks my adventure unless I can get a more reasonable priced ticket.
So, I intended on going representing my good friends at Cedar Hill Flowers. I do various digital media work for them as well as film videos.
Well... the folks at IRCE who do the digging on people to make sure they are actual retailers, found my entire website, all of my Cedar Hill Flower videos, as well as this blog. They poured over hours and hours of footage. Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure I was being tailed last week by their agents in Pennsylvania. Maybe that rock I found, had a listening device in it. I'm going to take a break from writing this and search the property.
No one was there, seemingly.
Long story short, they don't think I work for Cedar Hill Flowers, and consider me more of a consultant. I suppose that is a reasonable statement to make. So it does not look like I am going this year to IRCE18.
I'm not mad in the least. I understand they have certain standards to maintain and that I, Colt Sebastian Taylor, am larger than life, and surely it is hard to believe I work for no one man or woman. The IRCE is a GREAT conference, and I encourage you to attend if possible.
However... I do have one point of contention. One little thing that I feel obligated to mention.
The fine folks who made this decision describe me as "Blog Venture."
Ahem.
Excuse me good IRCE18 sirs and madams.
I am an Adventurer, Entrepreneur, and Amateur Everything.
I mean it's on the homepage as well as in the video.
I guess this is what you have to deal with if you are a celebrity like me.