I've attended many a career fair and the occasional science fair, but on w-25-oct I Amtrak'd from Philadelphia to Manhattan to attend my first trade fair: Internet World Fall 2000. It was very impressive, but also overwhelming; and at least part of that intimidation was due to poor addressing of the show floor.
I can understand why the organizers intermixed the exhibitors -- server hardware alongside graphics software, across the aisle from search engines and ISPs. IW isn't a department store; vendors pay for visibility and visits. I *could not*, however, understand/apply the numbering of the individual blocks/parcels. You'd expect something regular like the following, which can account for both the unit booth and all multiples:
____
[0101][0102] [0103][0104] [0105][0106] |0107 |
[0201][0202] [0203][0204] [0205][0206] | |
[0301]|0302| [0303______] |0305 | | |
[0401]|____|x [0403______]x |__________|x |________|x
____ ____ ________________________ ____
|0501||0502| |0503 | |0507 |
|____||____| | | | |
[0701]|0702| | | | |
[0801]|____|x |________________________|x |________|x
But instead, it was... (Phil takes a second look at the map) ...something very much like this. Ehrm.
Aha! But what *didn't* exist (and this I recall distinctly) were street signs at the corners (indicated by x's), or addresses on the booths themselves. These would've served the critical task of associating the block numbers (on the printed map) with the named vendors. In their absence, I was forced to repeatedly refer to the alphabetic printed index.
I'm all hyped up about bad addresses because I was busy playing one of several scavenger hunt sweepstakes games, and couldn't find YellowOnline.com (because they'd moved, argh). The rules: find each participating company (names and addresses listed), answer a question ("what's the number on the back of their badges? what three things does every company need?") and get a sticker confirming your visit. Half the vendors lacked the stickers and initialed the playing card.
That was certainly an involved way to win a Vegas vacation. For the less industrious, there were not only the logo-emblazoned freebies ("stocking stuffers," one friend calls them; "tchotchkes" says the newspeak) at most every booth, but also the occasional random drawing for nifty electronica. A Palm III, Palm V, or iPaq PDA; a DVD player, portable DVD, or Tivo; maybe even a bright-orange Humvee. To enter, just let'em scan your badge.
Badges? Omce they found Level 1A, preregistrants were channeled in batches to a bank of sixty-some PCs, where they'd enter their name into a webform, select from a disambiguation list (oh no! there was another Phillip Thorne there!), then print. Printer attendants shoved the white-and-orange cards into clear plastic holders, equipped with both pocket clip and neck lanyard. The badge included name, job title, company and city/state, plus a 2D barcode. Most booths were equipped with a handheld laser scanner for capturing this visitor data; operators discovered (to their dismay) that the clear plastic diffused the beam sufficiently to require multiple passes. The paper-tape console then printed not only the badgeholder's contact info, but also their answers to an IW survey (not very useful to the individual exhibitors).
More on the 1600-ring circus later... plus a "hull" of a party aboard the USS _Intrepid_ museum...