As a technology reporter I've travelled to CES in Las Vegas, IFA in Berlin and Mobile World Conference in Barcelona but to name a few. This is my third third year at Web Summit. I know what tech conferences are like. 

I know that you can expect to walk a good bit, not eat from one end of the day to the other and that WiFi can be slow. I know that the days will be long and the majority of the content won't be relevant to the audience of the show I work on. But overall, I know it'll be worth it.

Over 40,000 people are attending the Web Summit here at the RDS from Tuesday through to Thursday. Thousands of entrepreneurs are here looking to pitch their brilliant, innovative and sometimes weird ideas to investors and media. Walking through the areas where the start ups are based is exciting. People run up looking to tell you all about their products and their enthusiasm is palpable. 

This should be the news story. "Thousands of entrepreneurs descend upon the capital with the next wave of technology". What an awesome headline that would be. Sadly, that's not the case. This is what the people of Ireland are talking about:

Food for thought?

We may not think it now, but in my opinion this is a great waste of the good that Web Summit brings to Dublin. So who is to blame?

Some will say that it's just the Irish way - we like giving out. Personally however, I feel that people's backs are up because of the way Web Summit CEO Paddy Cosgrave has conducted his business this year. 

Web Summit is a commercial entity and they are fully entitled to move their conference locations to wherever they wish. It's sad to lose it from Dublin, but the whole bitchy exchange that followed the announcement of their re-location to Lisbon has been laughable. 

The timing of the move-to-Lisbon announcement was unfortunate. It stirred up bad vibes mere weeks before the 2015 event. The publication of emails between the Web Summit and the Irish government was silliness. It paints a very poor picture of the people behind the whole operation. Why not hold a dignified silence until after the final Dublin event and then do some explaining / complaining?

I remember sitting in front of the main stage at Web Summit last year, with no Wifi and watching Paddy Cosgrave take to the stage and give a sardonic slow clap to the RDS for their Internet services (or lack thereof). In all my time as a journalist, I have never seen anything like it. He was clearly angry, which is understandable. I don't, for one second, question how hard the Web Summit team works. But I do think it was embarrassing to see a CEO take a public shot at their host location in that vain, with the world's media sitting there watching.

Web Summit has control of the WiFi services this year and yet there are still issues. Does any of the team want to take to the stage and point that out? Didn't think so.

Charging €20 for a burger and a bottle of water is galling, but that's how supply and demand works. People have paid hundreds of Euro to get here - forking out €20 for a burger probably won't make that much of a dent in the kitty considering?

There are some fantastic speakers on the various stages and there's an inspiring sense of innovation on the ground. This is all getting lost in the midst of a mud-slinging match. We have one day left of Web Summit in Dublin. After that, it'll be Lisbon for the next three years and who knows where next? The bad blood between the organisers and the government needs to be put to bed before it completely sours the final day on Irish soil.