Tag Archives: Benspark.com

Blogging, Conferences, Photo-A-Day, Toys, Travel, Vlog

#BBNYC17 A Hard Rock Morning & A Glittering Hatchimals Night

At the Hard Rock Cafe
Photo-A-Day #4475

Despite being up pretty late last night I only slept until 7am. I actually fell asleep with my phone and therefore did not charge it overnight. Whoops. I when I awoke I packed up everything that I was given at Sweet Suite. I unfortunately had to take the LightSeekers toys out of their packaging so I can’t do an actual “unboxing” of them when I do my review. But, if you’ve seen one person take something out of a box then you’ve seen them all, right?

After packing everything up and checking my bag with the luggage robot at Yotel (check it out in the video), I met up with my friends Tim and Allison of Jones Family Travels. These guys are the nicest folks and their two kids. They were also headed my way to a breakfast at the Hard Rock Cafe for YouTubers. Tim and Allison and their kids have a popular YouTube Channel and they go on all sorts of crazy fun adventures. They are part of the Family Video Network. A Multi-channel Network that really works for their partners, unlike the MCN I stupidly joined about 4 years ago. Once I am out of that contract I am looking towards the Family Video Network. They really help their people. They also were gracious enough to invited me to this breakfast and treated me like part of their family. That was really nice.

Breakfast was fun and it was great to see all these YouTube kids playing together. I think that Eva and Andrew would have fit right in. I’m thinking that the family will have to make the trek down to NYC next year. This year I will concentrate on making the YouTube Channel more popular with the kids and Allison’s help.

After breakfast I walked over to The Cantina Rooftop for another event. This was the Stuff for Moms & Dads” Media event. ?It was hotter today than yesterday but the walk wasn’t too bad. There was a wait to get in and once upstairs I was able to check out the few things that I was interested in. I missed one thing that I learned about later, I wish I had seen it. I’ll have to figure out how to review the product.

I walked back to the hotel with some friends and then hung out in the lobby for a few hours until it was time for my next event. That would be my last event of the day. While I was hanging around I made a quick little stop motion of the LightSeeker toys.

My last event of Blogger Bash was a private party for Hatchimals from SpinMaster. It was the release of Hatchimals Glittering Garden. There were a ton of YouTuber kids and their families at the event. It was well decorated and at a fun location that overlooked part of the city. They had some very tasty snacks including pretzel bites that were stuffed with hot dogs and stone ground mustard. They were excellent and I had a bunch of them.

There were also mocktails that were colored and named for the different Hatchimals. Then of course there were a ton of Hatchimals that were put out for the kids to hatch. I waited till near the very end and picked up one of them to bring home for the kids to hatch. As luck would have it the goodie bag that I was given as I left contained a second one. This way, the kids can each have their own.

I headed to the train station and had a pretty easy ride home. I got home after midnight and then got woken up by Andrew around 4am. Welcome home. I did miss them all very much.

Blogging, Conferences, Photo-A-Day, Toys, Travel, Vlog

Sweet Suite 2017 – Show Floor & Swag Haul

At BBNYC17
Photo-A-Day #4474

This morning I was up early and headed to the Providence Train Station to catch the train down to New York city for Blogger Bash and Sweet Suite 2017. Sweet Suite was my main objective for Blogger Bash. I attended last year and it was a lot of fun. I felt way more connected and involved last year, however. This year I was a bit detached. I arrived early and walked to my hotel, Yotel. I love to stay at Yotel because it is a very cool place. I love the simplicity of the rooms. The room has everything I need and nothing I don’t.

I just got a new laptop the other day and so I was itching to see how well it would capture gameplay. I knew that the Yotel rooms had flat screen TVs that would have HDMI inputs. What I didn’t know was that they were not accessible. This is something that hotels should be aware of and make available to their guest. When we were at Pollard Brook having accessibility to the HDMI connection was key so we could use the Google Chromecast to play movies. At Yotel I wanted to connect my Nintendo Switch to the TV so I could test gameplay capture.

I was able to connect after taking the TV off the wall and finding the connection behind the TV. I even dusted for them.

After hanging at the hotel for the afternoon and getting some work done I was able to check in and decompress a bit. Then I walked from the hotel 20 blocks to Pier 60 for the Sweet Suite Event. It was a bit hot but I was travelling light: 2 Phones and a charger.

Sweet Suite is a great event. I enjoy it immensely. It gives me time to meet up with those great contacts that I have worked with over the years on Toy reviews, giveaways and donations. For me, this event is a great way to reconnect with old friends and make new ones. There were many nice people that I met and also some of the nicest folks I’ve ever worked with at the event. I had a great time visiting everyone. I captured a bit of it in today’s video but to be honest I spent more time talking and less time focused on the toys. I can focus on the toys in the coming weeks and months.

After the event I walked home and then worked on some gameplay capture until late.