Wow! Now I am REALLY glad that I ended up with no tickets. I get lots of brotherhood and comeraderie at my BM; I don't need to pay $100 for it. Don't get me wrong, it would have been nice to meet some fellow inmates, but that can be done through other venues.
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Last year I had a good time but the event has its faults.

Friday:
Went to the Man-O-War event with AJ Fernandez and his 3 models. Cigars were available for purchase and they had a couple barrels of Yuengling free to attendees.

From here we had to drive from the expo area to the bar where the Rocky Patel party was being held. The bar is part of the resort but not really within walking distance for a May evening in the Poconos. At the party there is probably 10x more people that the bar would handle on any given night. Parking is a mess as there are more cars than there are proper parking spots (some people had to get creative).

We wound up bailing on the party after an hour and headed back to our hotel rooms to hang out. While there we had some good laughs and several cigars (having a smoking room was excellent).

Saturday:
Made our way to the event more than an hour early to get into a massive line. Wound up having a few laughs and short conversations with the people in line in-front and behind us as we waited. Eventually got let in and got moving around. We talked to a few manufacturers and grabbed a bit of breakfast from the buffet tables.

When the next wave of people were let in it was noticeably more crowded and moving around freely became more difficult. The industrial sized fans that had been stacked to the rafters did a good job of removing the smoke from the building.

When the last wave of people was let in it was no fun at all. The mass of people turned into a single line that snaked through the booths (think cattle-drive). After being pinned in the Oliva booth for a half hour, I made my way out to the smoking lounge they had setup on the opposite side of the building. Here I listened to what sounded like ring-tone renditions of popular music while hanging out with a couple of friends and catching up online.

All in all
I had fun because of the people, not necessarily because of the event itself. I'm looking forward to going again this year but I've got a different game-plan for when the last wave of people come into the building. This time I'm going to bail out and find a nice comfortable place to hang out and smoke cigars.
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Walt...thanks for the insight. This being my first time gives me an idea what to expect. Love your reviews @ stogiereview! :-)
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have to agree with Addiction, what a sh*tty way to capitalize on the "limited" space they set it as. Purse BS IMO. I am surprised that given the interest and how fast tickets sell, they don't find a better/larger venue.

Anyway, the BBQ/informal herf sounds more and more akin to the spirit of cigars than cigarfest does. Not pissing on anyone's parade that got tickets but :-)
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Actually given how its growing and how demand has taken off they'd do better to simply have it at the same place in the summer so it can be outside. But the distributers under one tent, food under a separate tent and then entertainment et all on a large stage outside. And just sell the tickets rather than that dumb ass auction.
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As Crappy as it all sounds, Its amazing how the same people come back year after year....
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If they did this, it would be the Famous Smoke event. That's almost exactly how they handle it.
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Anybody try booking a Room at Split Rock today? My god what a Pain in the ass! I kept getting a busy signal and after getting put on hold and dropped a few times gave up. I tried again around 11 AM and was on hold for 30 minutes before I finally reserved a room.
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hmm...:-)
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This might be the yr this thing falls apart. I hope I'm wrong but, So far what a mess...
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There certainly nothing but headaches this year. If I didn't live a half-hour away I don't think I would go anymore.
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I had the same problems. This is my first year going so I hope all the pain is worth it. There has got to be a better process for both tickets and lodging.
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I do think the best time is the VIP herfer things, it pretty much garantees you a couple of hours when you can move around get things taken care off. If you have a VIP right after the breakfast get in line, that line builds up fast and you want to be towards the front. Then get in the hall and get your samples fast, don't loiter move quickly. Doing that you should clear the hall before it gets horrible.
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I've stayed at Split Rock twice over the past few years. The first time was in one of the time-share condos and they had a maintenance man doing something outside at midnight. He banged on our door. The whole experience scared the crap out of us.

The second time, we booked a room and it was not very clean at all. All of the ceiling fixtures were full of bugs.

Both times, there were real headaches in getting reservations, similar to what is described here.
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