WHY ARE WE GIVING AWAY A
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During our 1996 ISPCON, we received numerous suggestions that the exhibits and sessions be co-located in the same building. We implemented this for the 1997 show with all exhibits and sessions scheduled for the San Francisco Hilton and Towers Hotel. We actually had the same net exhibit space planned as was sold at the 1996 show, and we doubled the price of the exhibit space.
We failed to take into account the doubling in the number of Internet Service Providers, and more importantly, the doubling in interest among companies marketing products specifically designed for Internet Service Providers. As a result, all the planned space was sold out by the end of April 1997.
Pressure from companies wishing to exhibit at ISPCON'97 to do SOMETHING mounted daily. We opened some exhibit rooms on the fourth floor of the San Francisco Hilton. And we picked up a 7000 sf ballroom and two nice session rooms at the Hotel Nikko - literally within sight of the San Francisco Hilton.
We then started hearing from the companies who took this overflow space, that they needed to do SOMETHING to make attendees aware of their presence in these areas - essentially to lure attendee traffic to these areas.
Jack Rickard, editor of Boardwatch Magazine and the promoter of ISPCON'97, has driven a 1994 Hummer Wagon for three years. The vehicle attracts a lot of attention, and a good bit of enthusiasm, from total strangers in parking lots and gas stations. Gazing out the office window during a staff meeting discussing the problem of attracting attendees to the overflow areas: "Too bad we can't just park the Hummer there..."
Like most things at Boardwatch, it started as a joke, and became more bizarre from there. The thot plickened quickly. We would offer "Hummer Sponsorships" to the vendors who were trying to devise an attention getting promotion. Their decals would be placed on the Hummer itself, and we would produce a kind of treasure-hunt bingo card listing each of these sponsoring exhibitors. Registered attendees would receive the card at the registration desk. They would be required to have the card stamped at the exhibit booth of each of the sponsoring vendors, and then turn the completed card in for the drawing. On Saturday afternoon, we would pull one card out of the pile, and hand over the keys.
Only the sponsoring vendors will cummulatively pay for the Hummer - no attendee registration fees will go toward this prize whatsoever. Registered attendees have about a one in 2000 chance of winning a $71,000 vehicle, at no additional cost to them at all. And you can't win without visiting the sponsor's booth - traffic problem solved. It might even crank up the overall excitement level of the show a tad. Sounds like a win/win/win/win. We look for those. They're hard to come by.
That's the reason we're giving away a Hummer. Crass commercialism at its very best.
