Gold Coast? Kickstart? Pirates? Oh dear!

Tomorrow morning I’m flying to the Gold Coast for the Kickstart Forum 2010, a 3-day event that will “bring together more than 50 of Australia’s leading IT journalists and vendors”.

Apparently I’m one of them. “Leading IT journalist”, that is. Gosh.

Now some of the attending journalists tell me it’s a valuable opportunity to network and generate story leads. But with less than 24 hours until I fly north, I’m hesitant.

I’m starting to see the silly themed promotions some vendors are planning. Norton are doing some “top secret we fight cyber crime” Men in Black thing. Then…

“On the Sunday night, MyNetFone is sponsoring a Masterchef style interactive cooking dinner. Please note, you must wear covered shoes. On Monday night CSC will be sponsoring a pirate themed event, it’s always more fun to get into the spirit if [sic] things and dress up a little. :)”

Erm, no it’s not. I loathe dress-ups and themed events. What a wank.

OK, it’s at the Hyatt Regency Sanctuary Cove. Which is all well and good. It certainly looks comfortable enough.

But Sanctuary Cove isn’t a cove at all. Look at the map and you’ll see that it’s one of those awful fake resort gated communities built in the middle of a swamp.

There is no escape!

Have a look yourself. Take the online tour. It’s diabolical!

But still… One way or another I have to deliver a Patch Monday podcast on Monday and an episode of The 9pm Edict Monday night. And Crikey commissioned a story about something else for Monday too. Erk.

Wish me luck.

I’ll keep up a regular flow of commentary via my Twitter stream using the hashtag #ks10.