PI Live USA 2024 Recap with Wade Tonkin

Dustin Howes: 0:29

Hey folks, welcome to Affiliate Nerd Out. I am your nerd arrayer, dustin Howes, spreading that good word about affiliate marketing. Today. My guest, wade Konkins, coming in talking about PI Live and our experience last week. Wade, welcome to the Nerdatorium, sir.

Wade Tonkins: 0:47

Thanks for having me back in the Nerdatorium, man. It's awesome, sir.

Dustin Howes: 0:50

Thanks for having me back in the new auditorium, man. It's awesome. Yep Two timer club over here with Wade. First conversation was about affiliate management tactics, but today we're going to be going through everything we saw on PI live. Just the experience that I had was outstanding and I want to recap for the audience that didn't end up going A lot of new friends, a lot of new faces that I met. Let's start off with the good Wade. What did you see out there?

Wade Tonkins: 1:21

Yeah, I think definitely it was a little bigger than last year, which is cool and it's you know my background is. I've been to the PI Live in London. I've been there three times. It'll be my fourth coming up in october and you know they've.

Wade Tonkins: 1:34

They've definitely been trying to get established over on this side of the pond and last year I think they said they had about 700 felt a little bit smaller than that. This year they said they were, I think, just under 900 and it felt about right, I mean. So I think the numbers were up a bit. It's still not big like affiliate summit, but I don't think that's a bad thing necessarily.

Wade Tonkins: 1:55

Um, yeah I thought that the quality of people that was there was fantastic um, lots of good solution providers, some good publishers, um some really good brands, and so, all in all, I think that you know, from a like a quality versus quantity perspective, it was fantastic. So lots of good conversations, some pretty good tech solutions that I'm kind of geeking out over.

Dustin Howes: 2:18

Oh, yeah, go on Some good publishers as well.

Wade Tonkins: 2:21

Oh man, I'm not going to put my cards on the table yet. I got to get some stuff hooked up and it was crazy because I didn't have necessarily a super loaded up slate of meetings on the first day, but the second day I was packed pretty much start to finish, and on the first day I actually had one of my best conversations where it was just a drive-by Guy saw me walking through the exhibit area before everything even fired up and said, hey, I've been looking to connect with you and kind of ran me through what they were up to and it was.

Wade Tonkins: 2:55

It was cool stuff. So, um, you know, the one of the things I kind of I kind of liked about this one was that the layout I thought was pretty cool. It was definitely better than last year's event. I liked the fact that we kind of had like a whole floor to ourselves for the event. There was lots of meeting room, lots of meeting tables. I mean, there was usually if you wanted to eat at one of the two big meeting rooms. It seemed like there were tables available pretty much all the time, which is cool. I didn't know. And then the one thing I one of the things I probably would have changed about the meetings that they have, those bars, is meeting areas and, like the foyers or the foyers for the, the actual content room.

Dustin Howes: 3:42

Did I lose you, wade Wade? Did you go away? Hope it's not me. Hmm, maybe technical difficulties on Wade's side. I don't know why he's frozen, but I'm going to carry on. Oh, maybe he's coming back.

Wade Tonkins: 4:18

Here we go.

Dustin Howes: 4:19

Oh, he's back.

Wade Tonkins: 4:20

All right, man I got to. This is weird.

Dustin Howes: 4:28

I don't usually have Internet issues, but today it seems like that's the thing. Oh, it does. It's just a bad day. Francisco's going to use Titanic music, hi Wade, awesome.

Dustin Howes: 4:41

So you brought up a lot of good things there. On the good side of, I was really impressed by the table situation there is. There's only one scene where I saw the entire room was filled, like the tables were booked um, which was a good thing, and that just that was just one room, cause I know the other rooms had other opportunities. So there was no shortage of tables and this place where you could go, uh. But the most impressive part of all that was, the app was just spot on telling you where to go and where to be and which room to be in, which was a absolute disaster at Affiliate Summit from a perspective of like trying to figure out where your next meeting was. And then it gave you that five minute buffer too, which was very clutch, to wrap your meeting up and say I've got to get to my next, one kind of thing. So I had ample time to go across the venue and get to that next table if it was in a different room.

Wade Tonkins: 5:38

Yeah, and the venue isn't huge. So you definitely five minutes was plenty of time to get from one meeting to the other and I found myself in a lot of situations where I had like one table booked and I was like two tables over for the next meeting, so it was actually super quick and painless to go, you know, go from one to the other. So that was cool. I mean, all in all, I think the meetings were were really good. I mean it was it was a pretty good system. I'm not a massive fan of that app. I mean I think that swap card app is it's got some rough edges to it, but I think that that, like the, the web experience is a lot better than the mobile app experience um in terms of just having better access to everything.

Wade Tonkins: 6:16

But, um, I do like the fact that they give you the ability to like print out a pdf of of your meetings, so it's like you can actually have kind of a hard copy in the event that you don't have, you know, amazing connectivity like apparently I'm having today. But yes, that was cool. There's definitely some cool things about it. I think all the shows seem to be using it. So I guess in the end, I better kind of figure out how to optimize that thing, because it doesn't seem like it's going away and it kind of is what it is. I don't think I've ever seen a completely amazing conference app to this point. So nothing is perfect, so we just kind of, you know, make the best of what we can. Yeah, I think. So it's good that you. The meetings were definitely good. I didn't get a chance to check out as many of the networking events as I would have liked to. I know that I saw a lot of cool pictures from the Moxie mixer. Did you go out to that one?

Dustin Howes: 7:14

I didn't, did I? Uh, no, I didn't make it to that one. No, because it was off base like a mile and I forgot to sign up beforehand, and so that it was closed off to me.

Wade Tonkins: 7:30

Yeah, last year I think they had a bus that was taking people over, um, you know, from the show hotel over to south beach, because that's it's a little bit of a drive, you know, to go out over to south beach. But the, the venue is really cool. I mean it's a cool rooftop, um, nice view of the beach. Um, it's always interesting. They got like little pools in the middle of the, the bar, so you always end up with somebody sitting in the pool having a drink, so it's always kind of entertaining, makes for some good pictures. Last year Jeremy from Upsell it was in there a pretty good piece of the time. This year he and his buddies got sunburned all the hell at the beach because they went out to the beach before that.

Dustin Howes: 8:06

So that was kind of funny. He had, he had, he had best sunburn. That was a category we're going to put on here.

Wade Tonkins: 8:11

Uh, and we're in the. We're in the white, like the white button up shirt really made that sunburn pop, so it was. It was a cool look for Jeremy.

Dustin Howes: 8:19

Great luck, great luck. Uh, other other good thing that I said that I absolutely loved and I got this feedback from other folks too is the speed networking. I absolutely love the speed working events at these kinds of events, but they did this one really well. They put advertisers on one side, publishers on the other side, and he just marched down the row after three minutes and I was able to sell, like you know, a dozen of these Affy Stash demos like in a very quick fashion. I was very excited about that opportunity. I would like to see more speed dating, not just like publisher, advertiser, but like agency merchant, like a vendor advertiser, like mix it up in some kind of other fashion. I think it would be really smart. But the way they did it at the tables was better than ever I've ever seen at an affiliate summit. So like that.

Wade Tonkins: 9:18

And it was crazy, I was signed up for all those but I didn't make one of them because I just ended up stacking up my meetings. So that happens like every time I didn't get a chance to, you know, to catch any of that. But I was signed up for all of them and there was like four or five different ones that were kind of broken out by, you know, by vertical or or something like that. So it seemed like there was a lot of good opportunities for it for sure.

Dustin Howes: 9:39

Uh, if anybody else has any good things, drop it in the chat, let us know. Tell us about it. We're gonna move on into bad, so I don't like to shun down. I didn't have a lot of bad things to say about this, but you brought up, like maybe, the standing tables out there at the bar. It was a little bit of confusion.

Wade Tonkins: 10:01

I didn't think it was super necessary. You know, to be honest, I think there was so much other you know room that was a lot better for having those conversations, because I mean for me.

Wade Tonkins: 10:10

I'd rather not be standing around a tall boy having that conversation, and since they had so much meeting space in the two rooms that they had set up for that, I didn't think it was super necessary. The pricing on the bars was a little upstairs in the actual area, the uh, that was the tipsy flamingo and there was there was something. There was another kind of something, it was like a donkey or something like that. The two bar names of the, the bars on the floor, um, the pricing on those is pretty crazy and I know that a lot of people are going up and checking out, you know, and it looked like you'd have to, like, mortgage your house to get a glass of wine or something like that that was a little bit, a little bit dicey.

Wade Tonkins: 10:54

Um, I didn't, and I I'm not sure if it's just that they're still kind of new and getting established with that. But you know, a lot of shows that we go to we're kind of used to having, you know, hosted bars and stuff like that and that definitely wasn't. But that said, I wasn't looking to drink a lot during the day, so it really didn't ding me a whole lot.

Wade Tonkins: 11:14

And the after hours opportunities were certainly there if you wanted to go out and have good food and drinks, so that wasn't awful, but it's like just to go and get a Coke. I think it was like $10 or $11 before they broke out the stuff that was free that you could go and hit at the tables. But the bar, our setup, was a little bit weird. Yeah Little, you know, takes a little bit of getting used to. But you know, all in all, I think the one thing that the check-in go back to the goods, the check-in I thought was fantastic. I mean the registration, it was really easy to get your badge, so that was cool. The accessibility of the team from Hello Partner was really good. I mean Matthew and his crew and Drew were. They was really good. I mean Matthew and his crew and Drew were. They were always kind of wandering around. They're easy to, easy to catch up with and give feedback too, so that was kind of cool.

Wade Tonkins: 12:01

I've known those guys for a long time and they they worked their asses off to make that show go and so it was a lot of fun to you know, see, see those guys running around once they've already, you know, got everything going and you know, it seems, seems like that the stress level on that stuff is always, you know, at the at the greatest before you get everybody there and start to see everything, just, you know, be able to get going and kind of taking care of itself.

Wade Tonkins: 12:24

So, um, but I like that team. I mean they're a lot of fun and they were putting together some fun activities, like um the run in the morning that I didn't go to. That I'm still kicking myself over. Um drew was leading a uh kind of a networking of like 5k run, um on, I think, wednesday morning on the show, um, so, but I love it when they they go and try to find all kind, just different kinds of ways you can get people, you know people engaged and having conversations um they seem to be, you know, pretty open-minded to doing that and you know I've always found that crew to be super open to feedback and suggestions and requests and stuff like that.

Wade Tonkins: 13:01

So I guess that's kind of one of the benefits of the show still being relatively small and upcoming is that they're really looking to try to find ways that they can get it bigger and to get kind of more buy-in from the US audience, because it's a different audience for them.

Dustin Howes: 13:15

Yeah, yeah, A lot of points to hit on there that I didn't realize you were paying for drinks at the the tipsy bar. Um, I was going into the VIP room and like getting free drinks, no problem, so I didn't have that problem. But like, um, they're, uh, in the industry where we're used to getting free booze, it's tough to pull out the wallet. I guess Not, like a lot of people are not paying on their company dime.

Wade Tonkins: 13:49

Can you still hear me? I'm lagging. Yeah, one of the things, a little bit.

Dustin Howes: 13:56

Okay, I'll catch up, go ahead. What were you saying?

Wade Tonkins: 14:01

Yeah, yeah, and I think you know and it really might just be kind of a kind of a kind of a growth thing with that show and that you know, if you go to the London show it's it's a totally different deal to where it feels like it's.

Wade Tonkins: 14:13

You know it's it's a few years ahead for sure to where it feels like it's a few years ahead for sure, and it's more in the 2,000 to 2,500 attendee range, still got the same kind of quality, because the one big difference, I'll say, is that PI Live tends to be more focused on kind of traditional retail affiliate versus having the CPA network and lead gen. There's a couple of guys there, but for the most part all the sponsors and everybody that was there was really kind of more around, you know, selling products, which for me is you know a retail brand works.

Wade Tonkins: 14:49

You're not having to compete with all the noise on the meat market floor, with all the CPA networks. So it's a very different show along those lines. Um, but you know, the london show is a little bit different in that, you know, it's kind of more, you know, open bar, a lot of open bars and stuff like that. I mean there's still, um, you know it's, it's not tough to find a drink on the floor is what I would say once once the show gets going, because you know somebody will have them at their booth or, um, you know.

Wade Tonkins: 15:15

So there's, there's just a little bit it might just be a little bit further along to where they've been able to kind of develop that sponsor base a little bit further um to where there's a little bit more money flowing into it, versus, you know, right now, where they're just kind of trying to make the the name for the show and build the following in the us yeah and so there's they're, uh, you know, a little bit, probably a little bit tighter on the budgets than the bigger shows might be.

Dustin Howes: 15:38

Gotcha and then going back. Good thing that I saw is I never had a problem getting water or any kind of beverage Like there is. There's plenty of it around and I could fill my water bottle really quickly between meetings and affiliate summit. It felt like it was difficult sometimes to find a jug that was still filled up, oddly enough. But just the little things, a lot of really little things that were on the good side rather than the bad side at this event, which I was really impressed with. All right, moving on, what about a best session? Did you have any sessions that you attended that you really liked?

Wade Tonkins: 16:22

I didn't get a chance to catch many of them and, honestly, I think my own was the only one that I sat through fully, so which you got up and left in my session. I was just getting ready to answer your question.

Dustin Howes: 16:32

I was super bummed because I saw your question on there for forever.

Wade Tonkins: 16:36

I was like I got to get to dustin's and I saw you get up and I was like damn it I got off.

Dustin Howes: 16:41

Actually I was. I was so upset he kept skipping my question that I just decided that I was leaving. So, uh, that's on you, wade um, but I, I would have voted yours top if, if it wasn't for that, but uh, unfortunately you got front of the line. Well, I, I thought it was I had a great time.

Wade Tonkins: 17:03

I thought that I I liked the mcs that they had, because jim nichols is fantastic. He was a lot of fun. Uh, running the stage that we were on um, I caught a bit of trisha's session um with gary keibel. That was. That was cool. It's always fun. You get lawyers who are actually funny. Gary's always entertaining, but he always gives good information too. So that was. That was some pretty cool discussion. You know what? What was yours as far as sessions went? What'd you like?

Dustin Howes: 17:29

I mean you, like I said, you got second because she didn't answer my questions, but keeping pace with progression, like the influencer trends, there's Aaron Paul was up there, sam Katz that I just met and a couple of others, but they dropped some really good knowledge on the state of influencer marketing and the conjunction into affiliate and how agencies. It was just really set up Well, they put an agency up there, they put a publisher, they put a or an influencer, they put a merchant and then they had a, a Sam, as, like the guy that's working with all of them, and so it was just really well done. Okay, we got a little chat going on here.

Wade Tonkins: 18:20

We can just see if we have questions up there. But yeah, in the end I mean I thought that they did a pretty good job of putting together a pretty good survey of a lot of the hot button issues that people are talking about, and I'm always curious to check and see kind of where that influencer versus affiliate discussion stands. Um, because I really feel like in the influencer situation now was like bloggers were 15 years ago, where you know they were, you know they were going to blogger shows and being told, hey, you got to get sponsored posts, you shouldn't do any of this affiliate stuff. And then they would come, you know, then we'd come to affiliate summit or we would, you know, we would start crossing over going to blogger shows and for a bit, you know, joel and Karen and I at GTO were running the affiliate program for blog world and so you know we were getting sessions on there, you know, talking about affiliate and how we could, you know, be a part of the.

Wade Tonkins: 19:08

You know the revenue mix for for blogs and we started to see kind of those walls come down and and we started to see kind of those walls come down and I feel like influencers is kind of on the edge of that, to where, obviously, people still would love to get sponsored posts if they can or sponsored content if they can, but they're realizing that, hey, there definitely is an additional stream of revenue out here that we should be paying attention to, and I think that a lot of the vendors out there in the SaaS platforms or the networks are all trying to become a lot more influencer friendly or more creator friendly and or buying up platforms on their own that they can work into the mix. So I think that we're getting pretty close to having that wall broken down.

Dustin Howes: 19:50

I think there's always going to be some people that are going to be able to demand top dollar, but I think there's definitely going to be a market shift here where we're going to start seeing more people coming in for hybrid deals or coming in for straight rev share in that nature is helping the industry move forward in that and opening some eyes, educating those influencers to the power of the money they can make. So I'm very interested in it and I'm always trying to keep up with that industry for sure. Do you feel like the sessions at this event were like there was more or there's less or there's less relevant than the one over on the London side? What's your take on that?

Wade Tonkins: 20:45

I think it was about. Even honestly, I mean I think that as far as, like the content piece of it went, I thought they were on point and I mean the main stage at PI live in London might be a little bit bigger, but in the end I mean I felt like they did a pretty good job of of, you know, getting some really good sessions with some good names together and some good brands that were involved, so people would want to actually go check them out. I was pleasantly surprised, you know, for the turnout for ours. I know that. You know, know that the turnout for Trisha's wasn't bad and it's always tricky trying to figure out kind of what success looks like in terms of drawing crowds for those, because so many people are there trying to maximize their meeting time.

Wade Tonkins: 21:30

And I know for me and this is something that's kind of unforgivable as a conference veteran I did a really, really crappy show of blocking out my schedule, you know, for protecting meeting times versus, you know, protecting sessions, cause there were definitely some sessions that I wanted to hit, but then once I started to see interesting, I didn't want to limit myself and I figured, you know, in the end, you know, the publisher meetings are probably going to be more important to ROI on the show. So I just I sacrificed that. But I, looking back, I wish I would have blocked out a couple more and just said hey, this is the one I really want to catch.

Wade Tonkins: 22:06

So I'm going to leave this, you know, leave this, you know this, you know time off of the meetings request block. But all in all, it seems like the topics were, you know were, were spot on Um, they seemed like they had pretty good uh people in there you know talking about. You know what was going on, um, I thought they had an interesting mix, cause I know that in a lot of cases now, um, and a pretty marked turn from like the way things used to work with affiliate summit, where you know there was, it wasn't, you know, kind of a play thing. The speaking slots now at Affiliate Summit and at PI Live are, you know, sponsor sponsorship related. But you know they also will, you know, leave some space in there to bring in, you know, just speakers and topics that they think are going to be interesting.

Wade Tonkins: 22:49

And you know, you know we were I think Brian and I were both in there From LG, we were both in there just because, you know we. We kind of jumped in and said, hey, if you guys have any openings, we'd love to get in there and talk affiliate, and I'd actually gotten in touch with them and said hey, if you have any MC options or anything like that, I just want to be involved because I really do like the show. And then they came back and said, well, hey, if you've got some ideas for topics, we could get you a spot. So Brian and I were able to put together something that I think worked out pretty well, but I think there was a decent mix of that, and so to me, I think that the risk of being totally sponsor connected with that, is that you can end up getting the same company or the same person talking multiple times and it starts to feel a little bit overwhelming.

Dustin Howes: 23:41

Yeah, for sure, and I find a good strategy and I also fall into that pit of like, hey, there's too many good meetings, I don't have the time to go to these um these sessions and educate myself with this audience, but then I find a really good value in talking to the speakers afterwards a lot of the time. So I make it a point to make sure to go to three sessions that I really want to go to and most of the time that's going to be the folks that I want to support, like you and Tricia, and go to those sessions and support the PMA and what we're doing there. But I had a I keeping pace. I absolutely had to go to and one of my newest friends here, michael, who we met at AM leaders day, is just a rockstar affiliate manager like burning for education. I love her attitude. She she liked that session as well. I saw her in there, liked that session as well. I saw her in there, uh, after we had a few drinks at a bar, um, with a big crew the night before, so we were both um suffering together, which is great, um, all right, so uh it's part of the bonding experience it really is going going out and then suffering together the next day

Dustin Howes: 24:57

yeah, um, and speaking of that, uh, she is my most impressive new connection. I saw her all three days. She was in AM Leader session, which was absolutely great by Leanne and done very well. I learned a lot from that Dean Sutton there picked up a book from him on the LinkedIn topics and how to grow your channel and how underutilized LinkedIn is. But I was really impressed by Michael and her personality and the way she's going about like educating herself and she already knows a lot, so really impressed. How about you? You got any new connections you made?

Wade Tonkins: 25:41

Definitely. I'm like trying to try to look up names now because, like I met so many people, everything is blurring together. But, um, there was a new um like nil influencer affiliate platform that's actually funded.

Wade Tonkins: 25:51

You're a baseball guy, so scott boris the super agent yeah um invested in a um in like an nil uh influencer affiliate platform, and I had a great conversation with them and we're super stoked to kind of follow up on that, because I think that, I mean, college athletes are kind of a ready-made hotbed for affiliate marketing and influencer marketing, so that was a really cool one. I had a great time at AM Leaders as well. I mean I think that that's such a such a fun event and um, I I love the uh, the kind of um, you know, quick hitting, uh round tables thing that we did. I think I wish we would have had a little bit more time because I've, you know, 10 minutes for three, you know three or four people to fire questions at you right um, you really gotta kind of hammer through things.

Wade Tonkins: 26:39

So that was, that was yeah pretty crazy, but I did that in london as well. Um, and that was, that was a lot of fun. It was, I think, probably five or maybe five to ten more people um, in london, uh, for the am leaders thing. But, um, leanne's awesome, I mean she's. She's one of my favorite people in the business.

Dustin Howes: 26:58

Um, for sure her.

Wade Tonkins: 26:58

Anne's awesome. I mean, she's one of my favorite people in the business, for sure. Her commitment to education and kind of teaching people how to do it the right way is inspiring For me. I've been doing this for 25 plus years and one of the things I really love doing is finding ways that we can bring up the next generation of managers to do things the right way, and not necessarily saying that's always our way. I mean, we like to think we do it right, but to at least give people some guidance and mentorship and, you know, be able to share some cool content with people that are, you know, at a different stage in their career is a lot of fun.

Dustin Howes: 27:31

Oh, absolutely.

Wade Tonkins: 27:33

So some of the content they put together in those, I think. So I think some of the panels were really good. I thought that LinkedIn session was ridiculous. I'm kicking myself for not, because I sat through that last time and I'm in London and I'm kicking myself for not doing any of that yet.

Wade Tonkins: 27:50

But I mean the live experiment that they did with showing how you can get visibility to your posts and get interaction and really get things bumping on LinkedIn to get people interested potentially interested in your program or your offer or whatever, was mind-blowing. I mean, it's pretty cool to see somebody actually it was Michael making a post and then ending up with like 900 engagements by the end of the day. That's pretty crazy.

Dustin Howes: 28:18

Yeah, very, very crazy, the power of that. And Michael, make sure you get your 500 connections so you can get over that chump line on LinkedIn, super important to your networking. I use LinkedIn I don't know at least an hour a day when I'm out there networking. So super important, love that session. And then let's see Elena, who I hung out with quite a bit, and potentially going to shorter sessions could be a good idea. It's hard to sacrifice three meetings for one session. It's a really good point, but it is hard. You've got to come up with a presentation. You've got to come up with a presentation. You've got to come up with like quick meetings, like it's really hard to do a 20-minute session in all reality, um, but I see your point in the whole ted talks 18-minute.

Wade Tonkins: 29:11

You know blast session kind of concept which can be fun, I mean, is it is a presenter.

Wade Tonkins: 29:16

it could be kind of cool because it makes you really edit and you know you really have to dial it down to, like, you know, know key ideas and be able to really, you know, hit it hard and hit it fast. But it can be kind of challenging, though, to commit that kind of time or that kind of resource to sponsoring if you've only got that kind of, you know that short of a slot. I know that a few years back, like when we just reopened from COVID, I went to Affiliate World. Actually, oh God, what was it? It was a show in Dubai and it was God, I can't remember the name of it now.

Wade Tonkins: 29:52

It was really insane in that we had an interesting mix of gambling and crypto and then traditional affiliate, and they had tom from optismo and I come over there and they ended up cutting tom's session down to like 15 minutes and he had to phone like 18 hours and it's like, oh yeah, sorry, we had to shorten your session, so you get 20 minutes and I had originally had like a one hour session and they told me the day but like the night before I or it might've been that morning that it was affiliate grand slam or something like that but you're like, oh yeah, by the way, your one hour session is a 30 minute session now.

Wade Tonkins: 30:29

So I had to go through my deck and like absolutely slice and dice and murder my deck to try to get it down to where I could get it inside that timeframe and still leave time for questions. But I mean, I like some of those. But I think if you do like a healthy mix of those short ones and then having a couple of bigger keynote ones where you give people some time, can be fun. Because if you do panels and you have three people and less than 30 minutes, you get through intros and you have time for two or three questions and you're done.

Dustin Howes: 30:59

I mean I didn't see enough sessions like true sessions, where somebody's up there speaking and teaching something, rather than the everybody seemed to be doing a you know, a, a group setting and asking questions and interviewing, much like what this is. But like people learn in different ways, I think that the mix just wasn't where where it should be essentially.

Wade Tonkins: 31:24

But I get for work on a case studies, and you know kind of presenting and throwing, throwing some slides out and doing that whole thing.

Dustin Howes: 31:33

I like. I like a good slideshow every once in a while. It should be in the mix. And Victor says hope to catch you in PI Live in London. We'll see you there, buddy, I can't wait to meet you. That's my partner in crime over at Affie Stash. All right, and as we wrap this up here, Wade, let's get to the category everybody cares about the most, and that is best dressed at PI Live. Who'd you see out there? Best dressed at PI Live?

Wade Tonkins: 32:00

Who'd you see out there? Paresh is always bringing the A game man. He's always looking sharp, he's always got the hat. I mean, he's easy to find.

Dustin Howes: 32:09

He's got his own style. It is he's going to win this category. Every single conference that I do this with, his style just stands out, and Paresh never sleeps from my I assume he's a vampire of some sort, because he is always just running around the conference connecting people, pulling them over and connecting with other people. It's really quite amazing watching him go.

Wade Tonkins: 32:44

But one of my favorite people in the business because of that, because he's all about connecting people. It's not just about him and it's like if he's talked to somebody he thinks would be interesting for you to meet, he will absolutely go out of his way to go and pull you together. So super cool guy for that. And it's funny, I've only been to one Paresh Connect party in my life because I'm just not like a club guy.

Dustin Howes: 33:00

That's not my thing necessarily.

Wade Tonkins: 33:03

But I went to his event in Miami last year and it was cool, I mean, for what it is. He does the best out there and he's consistent. He's on brand. He does it every time and points to him for the dedication to making that work and building that brand and continuing to play it out.

Dustin Howes: 33:19

Absolutely and for my vote. I'm going to go with Jerry Ernst here with the bold move of a collared shirt in the pool, like very bold way about going about it, but love the smile on his face and this is how we got his sunburn, so love to see it. The outfit the next day, though, was truly epic because he had, like the glowing white button-up shirt on his face, and this is like.

Wade Tonkins: 33:40

This is how we got us sunburn, so love the outfit. The next day, though, was truly epic, cause he had, like the glowing white button up shirt and the like, bright, obnoxious red sunburn. It was amazing, and it just made that sunburn pop. So I was just like I saw him coming down the hall and I was just like, oh man, you, you got your beach time yesterday. Shit, yeah. Another one of my favorite people in the business, jeremy. He's just a great dude.

Dustin Howes: 34:03

Always, always fun to hang out with, Always fun to have a conversation with, and super knowledgeable. Great product as well. Like everybody, loves working with them. So over at Upsot, all right, wade, this has been fun. Thanks for coming on and hanging out and telling the folks all about PI Live. If you want to get your tickets, I don't know how to get them. I'm not an affiliate of theirs but I will be one day. Hopefully I'll be at PI Live in October. If Matt is willing to get me on as a podcaster again, I would love to do it. I had a great time doing my live podcast. I would love to see the venue like right in the middle of the show and like highlight it and get a crowd around going with it next time, instead of like in the cabana. But you know, beggars can't be choosers. I had a great time. Thanks for having me, matt.

Wade Tonkins: 34:56

No, it's a great venue. It's it's a really cool venue. It's kind of like an old market building. It's multiple floors, it's, um, you know, like definitely a bigger show, a lot more exhibitors, and it's there's crazy energy there. It's the show in in the UK for the industry. So, um, you know, there's there's other smaller ones, but that's, that's the biggie. So it's it's a little bit different placement. Evolution, you know, as a conference, but I definitely recommend it. If anybody you know does business in the UK or Europe, it's worth getting to.

Dustin Howes: 35:26

Oh yeah, for sure, Awesome. Thanks, Wade, We'll see you out there. Take care folks. Thanks for having me All right later.