It was my privilege to work on one of the biggest enterprise user conferences in the city. While this event finished successfully, the city of San Francisco displayed the reality of the wage discrepancy between the tech industry and others.
This city-wide hotel strike has been going on for weeks. It is ironic that the conference brings in so much revenue to the local hospitality industry, but its 60,000 attendees were not getting the services they deserved. When I was at a Union Square hotel (one of the venues for the event), I could not locate some equipment because the hotel personnel misplaced it, which probably would not have happened if their regular workers were on staff.
Coffee that was served for an executive meeting was not warm, and this was a four-star hotel. Protesters yelled at anyone who entered the front entrance of the hotel even though the conference attendees were not responsible for their wage dispute. My client could not sleep well because of all the protest right outside of her room window. The client also said that the rooms were not cleaned well, and laundry service was all mixed up. It was definitely not worth paying for the expensive room. I was glad that I opted out for a hotel room for this event.
San Francisco is losing its charm to host international conferences. Streets are dirty and bumpy while the CalTrain extension construction has been going on forever. I traveled to Las Vegas last week and realized how clean the city is and how smooth the freeways are. I won’t be surprised if this 20-plus-year-old conference based in San Francisco could move to another city in the future.