Sitting here at the Inbound Marketing Summit 09 down at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, MA. Don't miss the recaps recaps of some of the best content at the show from my marketing colleague Chris Oquist over on Radiating Influence and through our @percussion Twitter handle.

Now as a huge Pats fan and season ticket holder, my first thoughts had to be on the unusual stadium venue. Normally, I'm up in the 300 level, but I've seen a game from the Fidelity Clubhouse at Gillette once or twice, and it's pretty awesome. But for a trade show? I was skeptical. Pulling right into the VIP lot (you have no idea how nice that feels if unless you're here on game days), I had worked out why the show was here; "Chris Brogan must have club seats and want to write off the expenses for a business" I said as we walked in. I tried to convince the Percussion owners to go for club seats a few years ago using the same "we get to access to a conference center" pitch, no luck. That was going to be it for my venue observations...

But then we took our seats and something happened. This wasn't your typical trade show outlay. Usually there's one open vendor showcase room and a bunch of "break out session" rooms segregated off to the sides or on other floors. This leads to bunches of attendees moving silently in isolation from room to room all day, maybe saying a quick hello over lunch, and then enduring some very old school "one way" vendor-to-attendee pitches in the showcase. In short, the traditional venues are pretty anti-social.

Here it's different. There's just this one long open impressive three-story room with three giant screens and twenty or so high definition TV screens hanging over a bunch of tables. It could be the dining hall on a cruise ship. Right behind the tables and chairs, in the same giant room as the attendees and presenters, are the vendor pods, so if you're towards the back of the room you'll hear equal amounts of session presenter and vendor pitches. More importantly, you'll hear something even more critical - people talking to each other.

The room is so wide that side conversations can go on easily all day without really distracting those around you. Combined with the twitter feed displays on the monitors showing everyone what anyone else is tweeting about #ims09 at any given moment, and you have quite a social setting. Not bad for a social media focused event. I have to say, actually conversing all day made the show. When a presenter says something interesting, we can drift off into a mini-conversation right then and there at the table. It's counter-intuitive to drift in and out of sessions and conversations, and I suppose it annoys the presenters, but it works. Now that I think about it, so much of embracing social media is counter-intuitive or at least, counter to prevailing norms.

So Chris Brogan, social media event genius or club seat write-off? Still not sure, but I like it. Speaking of which, if you're out there Bob Kraft, I'd be happy to come down from the 300 level to plug this clubhouse venue on game day.