Share your AO16 experience

[Lizzie]

Hello everyone,

Wow! I can't believe Airbnb Open is over for another year. Here is a quick look at videos taken from day 1 and 2!

Day 1:

Day 2:

We hope you had a fantastic time. It was a very busy few days, jam-packed with events, talks, meetups and trips around the city. 

It would be amazing to hear how you experienced this year's Open. What did you do? What did you enjoy? Also, feel free to share any photos you have - we would love to see them.

Lizzie

Offer you feedback to the news and new features announced at the Open here in the CC, view here. 

[David126]

@Lizzie

I could not see you post until I reply to it.

[Lizzie]

Oo odd, thanks for highlighting @David126. Perhaps it is because of the videos, they do take a little bit of time to appear! Hopefully others can see this. 🙂

[Judi8]

I attended "Building relationships with landlords and neighbors" and their was a url that was referenced that is supposed to have a lot of resources for discussing airbnb with various entities. I can't find that URL. It was really simple, but I don't remember it. There was also supposed to be a way to contact speakers for their presentations and resources, but I don't see a way to do that either.

I heard that all the sessions were recorded and I was hoping to gain access to videos, presentations, and references after the Open. Is this going to happen? I didn't worry so much about missing some sessions I really wanted to attend because I thought I could view the videos later. Is it just going to take time or is the handful of videos on the main page of Airbnb Open all there is going to be? Without having access to sessions that were impossible to attend, this was a lot of money to spend on attending a relatively small number of sessions. I agree with another person who posted that not allowing travel time in between sessions was a very poor choice. Either you had to rudely leave early or miss the beginning--or most of a session--because it was on the other side of Broadway and it started 5 minutes ago. Time management really shouldn't have been such a big learning curve for the planners of Airbnb. Don't get me wrong. I loved the sessions I attended and the people I met, but there was no way to effectively use my time to maximize the number of sessions unless I had stayed put in one location even if all the topics were not pertinent.

[Ange2]

@Lizzie    Are you going to be posting the live Q&A Session?  Would be interested to know which questions from the ones hosts submitted were asked and how they were answered. Thanks.

[Lizzie]

Hello @Ange2,

Thanks for checking.

Yes, I will be. I am just waiting to receive the information on this and I will share this with you all as soon as possible.

Lizzie 🙂

[Ange2]

@Lizzie   Any news on the questions we hosts were asked to suggest to the founders?  Were they answered?  Thank you

[Dieneke0]

Hello @Lizzie great you started a post where we can share our AO16 experience. I got back last Monday 21 November and am still digesting what was offered at the AO. I also added a trip to San Francisco and did sightseeing in Los Angeles.

For me personally one of the highlights was to see three of the other 4 Airbnb torchbearers that ran with the Olympics Torch in Brazil earlier this year. As we had all run at different times, we never met, but I have been corresponding with all. In addition to myself the torchbearers were James from LA, Virginia from Rio de Janeiro, Joe Gebbia from Airbnb and Yoshi from Tokyo. Yoshi unfortunately didn't make it to the Open.

James, Virginia and myself met up over a meal at James's house before the start of the Open. We also managed to take a picture at the Open itself which also included Joe Gebbia. 

[Lizzie]

This is wonderful @Dieneke0, it is great that you were all able to meet with each other again, that is the power of Open it brings friends from across the world together and I love that you have the torch there as well. 🙂 

It would be great to hear more about what talks and events did attended when you were there? 

Does anyone else want to share their AO experiences as well? 

[Todd-and-Randy0]

Hi Lizzie,

I just took the Open survey and there wasn't a place for me to elaborate on my answers so I will give my comments to you. Overall, the Open was amazing - particularly the scope of having a conference in a downtown venue such as LA and herding all the attendees from one venue to the other. Quite impressive. Also, some amazing speakers and big names. Great to hear from them.

Now, the not-so-great stuff:

- We came from San Diego and arrived Thursday afternoon due to work commitments so we missed any orientations, which may have helped. We didn't find out about the Founders keynote until we saw it the next morning as a video on the Open site. Not sure how we didn't know about that. Didn't see it on the agenda but apparently others did since the venue was full.

-Our first event was a "neighborhood exploration." We deduced by the name that we might wander as a group through our chosen neighborhood to get to know it better. Instead, we watched a puppet show - just 3 of us. It was interesting but not really worth rushing to LA for.

-I was disappointed that the keynote speakers were every hour on the hour making it next to impossible to get from one venue to the other in time. Consequently, there started to be a mass exodus of attendees about 10 minutes before the speakers were finished so it became disruptive.

- Most of the speakers were interesting, but not super relevant to my life as a host.

-We were Amex card holders so we were told we could gain special access to speaking events. Never did. We were told we would get special access to Spotlight to see Maroon 5. We didn't. We stood on the street behind a fence with a plethora of other folks. (One wonderful woman working with your team tried to get us in but she couldn't.) It was disappointing so we left the event. The next day (Sunday) we went to the LA Auto Show and spoke with a car rep who just happened to be at the event. He told us he got in for free because he knew someone working and was close to the stage. He told us we missed Lady Gaga. Sigh. We thought the concert was a perk for attendees but there were tickets sold to those not attending the event and the venue couldn't really accommodate them.

- We went to the Community dinner, which was on our agenda as starting at 8:30. We arrived about 8:45 and were told it actually started at 8. Everyone was near the end of their meal and they sat us a table by ourselves and rushed out tepid food.  The venue was adjacent to a restaurant and looked like a storage room with folding tables and chairs and paper plates.

- We were told there would be someone at Clifton's who could look at our listing and give us feedback on the content, photos, marketing, so forth. Actually, they just gave us a tour of the dashboard. We spoke with the photo folks who gave us some pretty generic advice for taking our own photos.

While the venue was amazing in its scope (and the LA theaters were cool), I think it would be more practical to keep it on some sort of "campus" where it easy to get from one event to the other and you are better able to network with the community. I felt when we were outside the venues, we were mixed in with the DTLA crowd and rushing from one place to another. The closing night event should be just for us since we paid a good price for attending.

[Melissa76]

It was my first time to attend an Open and I found the experience overwhelming.  The talks were all very interesting!  Though of course I was starstruck by Ashton Kutcher and Gwyneth Paltrow who were both engaging speakers.  Also loved seeing and hearing from the founders.  I have to say though that the process of travelling in between venues were quite a challenge and I didn't like that people were leaving the venues before the talks ended.  

My most memorable experience was the community dinner where I felt that I got to know my fellow hosts quite well and we exchanged a lot of stories. It was so exciting to talk to hosts from different parts of the world. Nate Blecharczyk also sat at our table and it was so inspiring to have been able to meet him personally and able to share some thoughts about airbnb.  

Also loved the opportunity to just sit at the lounge areas and engage in conversations with fellow hosts and airbnb personnel, I felt that I really belonged to a community.  Everyone was so nice!   I also attended the South East Asia Hosts Meet-up which was really really great.  

I was a bit disappointed during the Maroon 5 concert that we couldn't be nearer the stage especially now that I've read that paying attendees were not given priority, and even more disappointing if some people were given free access.  Though I still enjoyed Maroon 5 and Lady Gaga tremendously.

It was a most memorable experience, thank you Airbnb.

[Julie301]

Hi Lizzie,

First of all, I would like to offer all my best wishes from Biarritz (France) for 2017 !

Then I am contacting you back as we are now in January 2017, and the videos of the AO's keynotes are still not online. Do you have any news from that please?

[Donna136]

Hello - I am wondering do you offer these in Australia at all?  Sounds like an awesome event to attend.

Cheers Donna 

[Lizzie]

Hello @Donna136,

Great to see you are interested in this. In specific regards to the Airbnb Open, this is now in its fourth year and it is a one off yearly event where hosts from all around the world come together. There are more local meetups and events though, for example last year there was a Host Day in Melbourne and from the meetup point of view I would recommend taking a look at the Airbnb meetup page to find local events. 

Have you been to many Airbnb gatherings before?

Lizzie