TL;DR: It was one of the best experiences of my professional life. I banished the inner introvert for a week and met so many incredible people - authors, artists and most of all readers.
Have a bunch of pictures! In order (hopefully):
1) Ready for prime time? The books were, at least. I'm happy to report that I almost sold out of both Starshine and Exin Ex Machina.
2) Me, dressed as a pirate and imbibing some liquid courage so I could go dance on a stage in front of people, all to support the wonderful literary cosplay Page to Stage Costume Contest , organized by the utterly heroic Cisca Small. Not pictured: one eyepatch.
3) Heinlein: The Later Years. I had the incredible honor of speaking on this panel with two absolute legends of science fiction, Larry Niven and Gregory Benford. Nathan Ameye and I soaked in all the stories they told, and it was a joy to hear about the impact Heinlein had on so many in the audience.
4) The Future Is Now - Predictive SciFi. With a panel that included renowned scifi author (and terrific human being) Chuck Gannon and a repeat appearance by Gregory Benford, there was no way this wasn't going to be a stimulating, challenging and insightful hour of lively discussion and debate, and it delivered in spades.
5) Dune. We tried to get Kevin J. Anderson to simply talk for the entire hour, but the moderator insisted on the rest of us pitching in. So we talked about ornithopters in action and how they managed to fit so many, ah, 'lovely' people into the film. Also a little about that book the movie was based on....
76,703 steps were taken, or ~14.5 miles. Dozens - nay, surely hundreds - of incredible people were met. I'll never forget it!
...and I'll probably do it again next year.
