Blagging in Amsterdam
I've just recently got back into Satellite Communications, so I got sent over to the IBC (International Broadcasting Conference) in Amsterdam in September. Now, I work for a Dutch company, so I got put up in a nice hotel near the office whilst I was over there, all on the company tab. On the first day at the IBC, I paired up with one of our sales guys. He's a smooth talker and managed to blag some laser pointers from a company that did some thing *not* related in any way to what we do. The laser pointer makes a great cat toy BTW. We got a nice pin badge with the new Sirius satellite on it from the SES-Newskies stand as well. On the second day I hoovered up the usual freebies, pens, sweets etc. However, this is where the biggest blagging starts. I meet up with the bosses on the Intelsat stand, whereupon I immediately get plied with free beer. I then find out that we've been invited to the Intelsat reception, in one of the poshest hotels in the middle of Amsterdam that evening. Result! Cue us piling over there that evening, to a reception room with as much food and booze as you could shovel down your gullet. I 'strategically' parked myself near the bar so that the beers could keep flowing. Not sure how much I drank, but seeing as I wasn't paying, I wasn't keeping count! After we left, our CEO takes us to a topless bar in the red light district with some guys from another satcomms company. When we got there, his company card when behind the bar and the drinking continued! When we left, the other guys were still there and buying the girls 50 Euro bottles of champagne. We didn't see them arrive at the IBC the next day until quite late in the morning!

I also used to work in horseracing, working in conjunction with C4 racing & the BBC, so as a result had Access All Areas passes for most of the racecourses in the country, but I don't know if that'd be considered a freebie or now.

Length? Well, our biggest antenna is 11m across, picks up Sky a treat!
(Raystorm, Sat 10 Nov 2007, 21:07, Reply)