Peachtree Street, Avenue, Circle, Way, Lane, Boulevard, Drive, Plaza… Which One?

A few of us Zillowites made the trip to Atlanta to attend the Keller Williams Family Reunion event, which is being held at the Georgia World Congress Center. Friday started off on a humorous note as half of our entourage went early and upon arrival, sent a text message, ” … went to 3 different Marriott’s on 3 different Peachtree Streets. Be careful.” Marriotts and Peachtree streets are ubiquitious in downtown Atlanta, but just try to find a Pepsi product in this Coca-Cola city. Saturday Night Live’s fictitious Olympia Cafe (based on Chicago’s Billy Goat Tavern) would be outlawed (“Cheezborger Cheezborger Cheezborger No Coke. Pepsi.”)

Another observation: Lots of red. It’s Keller Williams’ main color — and lots of their agents and representatives are mostly wearing red (even flamboyant hats and shoes) — but the city is further awash in red from CNN, Chick-Fil-A, and of course, Coke products. Red is Atlanta’s power color.

Funny #2: Another member of our team hopped a shuttle to the World Congress Center and got dropped off at a part of the center that she assumed was the Keller Williams event. As she approached the exhibit, she couldn’t help but think that “these Realtors have amazing hair.” Lots of wild hairdo’s, big hair styles, extensions, braids, and colors galore, all laced with a strong odor of hair spray. What’s wrong with this picture? Yup. Wrong trade show. She got dumped off at the Bronner Brothers International Hair Show, which is also being held at this behemoth center.

Scrambling to the other side of World Congress Center is no small task for anyone who has been here. “Cavernous” does not begin to describe the building. Several sets of escalators take you down, down, down into the exhibit space — into the bowels of a building that is truly enormous. You could fit a small city into one section of it and no one would notice — it’s that big. 

The convention really got rolling on Sunday, with hoards of enthusiastic agents spilling into the exhibit area. We did our best to keep up with the flurry of visitors, the explosion of questions, the wave of business cards and positive comments, and yet we couldn’t keep up with it all. It was fantastic and we felt like rock stars! Okay, the interactive video game, Guitar Hero, being played next to us for hours on end may have contributed to the euphoria just a little bit.

Funny #3: At one point during the event, 3 ladies from Florida showed up at the booth each wearing a bright pink wig similar in style to the one that Britney Spears wore  during one of her many “moments.” We were about to tell them that the hair convention was on another floor when we realized that they were Realtors and the wigs were a visual beacon to help other associates locate them among the thousands of people on the floor. Go ladies go!

(Many thanks to Zillow Partner Relations Manager Thomas Brown for his contributions to this post.)