No Free Wifi at PRSA International Conference - Here's Why

This may seem like a nitpicky post, but trust me it's not. It's 5pm on the first day of the PRSA International Conference and I'm sitting in the lobby bar blogging on the 'net, rather than sitting in a session, ironically, on using online tools to do and manage PR programs. My colleague Sandra Fathi was trying to give the preso, but she was stymied by her doggy PC and even doggier wifi access.

That she had wifi access deep in the recesses of the Washington Hilton was remarkable enough, since none of the rest of us in the room had it. She apparently had an access code from one of the people in the room [I'm not making this up].

At the Washington Hilton, the only place with free wifi access is the lobby. As we were waiting for Sandra's presentation to get on track as she dealt with a frozen computer and balky Internet access, an attendee behind me grumbled, "We paid $1,000 to attend this conference, and they couldn't give us wifi?"

I bolted from the room [sorry, Sandra] and came up here, logged on and pulled up Sandra's presentation on SlideShare. I'll review it when I have a chance and can always ping her if I have a question. I was just getting ready to blast PRSA for not offering free wifi when I saw PRSA CEO William Murray across the room. So I went up to Bill and shared my complaint, and his response was simple: the Hilton wanted $200,000 for free wifi for the four-day conference.

Whaaaat??

It's true. Bill pointed out the contract with the Hilton had been signed years ago, before ubiquitous wifi became the norm. And the Hilton, for reasons I don't care to explore, apparently wouldn't budge given the new realities. So PRSA is between a rock and a hard place. He said that starting next year in Orlando, they were able to negotiate free wifi into the contract and that it should be the norm in future years as well.

Why is this important? Because with the likes of Starbuck and McDonald's providing free wifi, along with countless other locations, people have come to expect that they will be able to log-on when they want to. They don't want to have to run to the lobby bar as I did. They don't want to be offline in a room while someone is talking about Internet tools.

This is not a trend. This is already present reality and a given for the future. I give PRSA a pass on it this year given Murray's explanation, but going forward, it's a no-brainer.