Now that we have all had some time to get caught up after attending the ISS Expo I have a few observations.

I attended the SSA Expo in Vegas last Sept. I also attended the ISS Expo in Vegas -- I gotta tell ya the ISS Expo ROCKED!!! SSA - not so much.

Here are my comparisons - as I see it.

SSA held there Expo at Cesar's Palace - nice place, but very large and spread out. The registration information we received did not include a map so it took us an hour just to find the registration desk!
The Exhibit Hall was in a separate building - to access it you had two choices - go through the pool area and then back through the employee area and storage areas for the lounge chairs, or take the back way through the construction and past the dumpsters (very smelly when it is 105 outside).
The seminars were held in the meeting rooms which were always too cold (temp was set at 50). I attended 5 seminars, and in all 5 I about froze to death!!!
The seminars were timed so you had an hour to get some lunch, but lunches were served at the Exhibit hall -- it would take you 20 to 25 min., to get past the dumpsters to get to the buffet style lunch -- not enough time to eat and get back, so most days we just skipped the lunch to avoid the hassle. Besides, after passing the dumpsters you really didn't feel like eating.

Overall I was not impressed with the entire SSA operation. I wrote to them telling them of my concerns, and my displeasure at the way things were handled at the Expo -- I have yet to get a response.

ISS held their Expo at the Sands convention center.
We arrived on Thursday and had no problem finding the Registration desk. We received all of our registration information including a book that had a map of where things were being held (if we would have used that more we would not have gotten lost as we did at times - our fault).
We went from the registration desk to the Exhibit floor - no problem finding it (no dumpsters to pass!!). We had a great time seeing all the vendors and talking with the friendly staff of ISS.
Friday we attended the Legal Learning with Jeff -- the room was cool, but not cold. The only glitch we had was being misdirected for lunch -- but even that was not a huge problem.
After the Legal Learning we went back to the Exhibit floor to revisit some of the vendors and to thank the staff of ISS for a great time.

Overall I feel the ISS put on a much better show - next year we will be attending only one show and it will be the ISS show. See you guys and gals in Vegas next year!!!!

Just one more follow up about SSA -- I had spoken to many people at the SSA Expo -- many of them had been to several SSA Expos and they said that this was normal for an SSA show. They only attended so they could go to Vegas at their company's expense!! It was a paid vacation or them.

My feelings exactly! I have been to 3 SSA Expos and found basically the same problems each time. I never felt comfortable being a owner of a small storage facility. I feell like SSA is a show for the big time investors. I have been to several ISS shows, sometimes 2 a year, and have enjoyed every one of them.
I even enjoyed the one which was held at Ceasars Palace. The atmosphere of ISS at Ceasars made a big difference compared to your SSA experience.