Chillinati

Chili and Diet Dr Pepper

I officially ran out of tchotchkes last night at 6:59 p.m., just as the reception was winding down. The featured dinner was … Skyline Chili in meat and vegetable varieties. The chili has the familiar texture and appearance, but has a vague curry aroma. Its non-Scovill spiciness makes it interesting. Verdict: thumbs up.

Other lines featured hand-carved roast beast (for those who eschew Skyline), fruit-kebobs (strawberry, honeydew, canteloupe, honeydew, pineapple), and brie with apricot marmalade. Uncut, the brie looked like a cheesecake. The dude in front of me apportioned himself a ginormous slice only to be disappointed when the inner cheese oozed out onto his plate. His embarrassment benefitted the rest of us.

The sponsors set up a “Cyber Cafe” to encourage attendees to fraternize with the exhibitors. Throughout the day, scores camp out on the array of laptops to read email, get stock quotes, or play Bejeweled. This wouldn’t bother me as much if there was a wireless link set up so us vendors could maintain tethers to our respective corporate motherships.



When the line wanes, I pop on briefly to check email. I’m paranoid about public terminals, especially when people don’t log themselves out of their mail programs, so I just borrow the cable and connect it to my machine.

---

Susan knows what I’m talking about when I say there is a lotta money poured into these events. For example, we’re charged for:

A 9′x10′ space – this is paid when we registered. It’s about $3,500 (based on $39/square foot). Back In The Day the 40×40 spaces would easily hit the $50k range. Height is limited in certain areas.

$155.35 for carpet rental. This is no ordinary 9′x10′ carpet. Well, actually it is: black, tight weave that looks like nearly every other piece of carpet covering the concrete floor. A rental pad underneath would have doubled the cost.

Carpet vacuuming costs $0.25/square foot per day. (Or $90 for the four days) This is cheaper than the $200 Networld+InterOp charged in the 90s.

Electricity costs $55.38 for a 5A circuit or $86.20 for a 20A circuit. (My laptop and the two display lights would work on a 5A.) We don’t have to pay extra for the house electrician to test each power strip we plug in. At a conference I went to several years ago, the prevailing rumor was that declining this service might result in “unreliable power” or “unexplained, spontaneous, nocturnal plug severing.” This convention center was where I first heard of IBM’s special power cord that was one foot shorter than standard so the users were not governed by these rules.

$68.25 for a “6′L x 42″H Undraped Counter. A motley, jacked-up folding table. Hundreds of unremoved staples along its perimeter have been used to secure the cheap, white plastic cover and translucent, black veil (available as a separate option). In five years, it may be an official antique.

$78.00 for one Casey Padded Stool It’s a hell of a lot nicer alternative to standing all day but, dang, $78 “rental” for a chair you’d find in Staple DepotMax for $40.

$161.60 for Warehouse crates [sic] late arrival – This is a typo. What they meant was “You didn’t use our cousin’s shipping company, so we deprioritized it accordingly. You paid two hours’ overtime. Because We Can.”

$178.50 for wheeling the box from wherever it accrued two hours’ of late arrival to my booth spot. I swear the case looks like they beat it before each show. About ten years ago, we were doing a show in NYC. Our Sun monitor was destroyed. They said: “You didn’t pack it safely.” I said: “Bring me the box.” There were two forklift holes through it.

Connections to the outside world are breathtakingly expensive. The pay-by-day Convention Center wireless available near the cafe is deliberately blocked in the exhibit hall because … they want you to buy a shared T1 (1.5Mbps) for $895, limited to 1 computer connection. Fractional ethernet lines are avialable for $745 (512Kbps) or $395 (shared 56Kbps). For obvious reasons, we did not opt for this. For comparison, we pay ~$400 for a month for our second T1 line at the office.

Oxygen and restrooms are complimentary!