Image Gallery: The Channel Partners Evolution Expo Hall

The inaugural Channel Partners Evolution – formerly Cloud Partners – was a huge success.

The event, held Aug. 14-17 in Washington, D.C., drew more than 2,700 participants for keynotes, education and of course, networking. And there’s no better place for networking than the expo hall, which once again featured the biggest suppliers and master agents/distributors in the channel.

Highlights included our new “experience areas” which attracted vendors that specialize in cloud, mobility and IoT services.

Flip through our gallery and you’re bound to see someone you know – maybe even yourself!

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One of three “experience areas” at Evolution, Mobility City, sponsored by AT&T, featured a number of kiosks where vendors could meet with solution providers.

You learned how to deliver mobile solutions and services that will attract millennials and keep end customers engaged. Stage sessions included “Strategy as a Service” and “Enabled Applications to Sell,” featuring industry experts who helped you propel your mobility business forward.

MetTel was one of the suppliers to draw a crowd to its kiosk in Mobility City.

Vendors we talked to in our experience areas liked their spots since they attracted an audience specifically interested in their specific solutions.

You got to relive your youth at NEF‘s booth where Ms. Pac-Man attracted lovers of ’80s arcade games. (As an aside, I wonder if anyone’s beaten my record on the machine at Miner’s Drive-In in Yakima, Washington, from 25 years ago.)

Another new “experience area” was the IoT Experience Zone, sponsored by KORE, a first-time Channel Partners exhibitor.

This area featured a handful of vendors that work in the Internet-of-Things space. Stage sessions offered insight on how partners can pull together innovative and profitable IoT solutions for customers.

Channel Partners Evolution title sponsor AT&T was front and center in the hall with its ever-present globe.

The Evolution Theater, sponsored by Rackspace, was home to some great programming, including our Passport sweepstakes giveaway. It was sponsored by AT&T, Rackspace, Synnex, Windstream, SoTel, KORE, China Telecom Americas and AppRiver.

The winner, Marilyn Jackson, is flanked here by Kevin Morris (left), Channel Partners’ sales development lead, and C.J. Foster, senior sales executive. Jackson took home $2,500 in AmEx cards.

The third of our three “experience areas” was the Cloud Computing Lab, sponsored by Synnex. We expanded on our Cloud Migration Lab that debuted at our spring show with a number of vendor kiosks and stage sessions that helped partners find new ways to cash in on cloud.

Ooma. Oprah. Oprah. Ooma.

VoIP provider Ooma was one of more than two-dozen first-time exhibitors at a Channel Partners show.