The Richter Scale^®

At many tradeshows, vendors are often willing to give away samples of their products or at least sell them at a much reduced price, for a variety of reasons.

For example, when it’s the end of the show and they don’t want to lug everything back to the office or even have to pack it all back up. In this category, I happened to stop by the stand of MCA / Manhattan Cellular, a French company which makes incredibly nice looking leather cases for mobile phones, iPods, and Sony PSPs. After admiring their wares (which they were slowly packing away since the show was closing in less than a half hour, and getting ready to walk away, the beautiful French woman doing the packing asked me if I wanted one or more of the cases. I ended up walking away with a great white leather case for my video iPod, and several PSP cases (one for each of the kids and PSPs in my family - mine, my son’s, and my daughter’s). I am staring at that nice iPod case here in my hotel room as I write this entry.

I also ended up buying a collection of Pelican (hardened plastic) cases that Pelican staff didn’t want to ship back to their office, at about 60% off list.

Another reason a company might part with their wares is because you have a need, and ask for a sample.

Again, I experienced this twice. My issue was that my new Sony VAIO TX-690P notebook needed to have its system restore data backed up onto two DVD discs, and I only had one in my hotel room. At an evening event I came across Imation, a well known maker of computer media. When I explained my plight they were nice enough to open up a package of DVD-R media and give me a disc. They also gave me their press kit on one of the cool USB flash wristbands they are now producing, as well as a sample of their new scratch proof CD-R media. And yes, the Imation ForceField CD-R media really does appear to be scratch proof.

However, I found I goofed - what was back in my room was a DVD+R blank, and not a DVD-R as I originally thought. While it might not make a difference, I figured the Sony DVD writing software for generating the restore discs would prefer consistent media types, so the following day I stumbled across Sky Media Manufacturing, which produces color displays (LCD and Plasma) as well as blank optical media, under the Swisstec name (CompUSA sells their products, although I had never heard of them before). I asked if they might have a loose DVD-R disc, and they just gave me a package of 20 of them instead. Greatly appreciated. And thanks to Imation and Sky Media, I was able to safely back-up my new notebook that same evening.

Exhibitors also give away product for special performances, typically during presentations they are giving. Such performances including yelling the loudest, jump up and down the most, parroting answers to posed questions, or doing other embarassing things. Occasionally just being at the right place at the right time works too, but that’s rare. There’s also the not-so-rare raffle drawing.

Finally, folks might just give you a product because they are giving everyone products. Typically this only works if you’re among the first ones there, as no matter what the product is, if it’s free, it’s soon gone. I don’t recall having good enough timing for anything like

And all that is in addition to other interesting hand outs, like pens, prop-up plastic things to hold up your PMP or MP3 device, the occasional t-shirt (not so many of those this year), pins, buttons, and notepads, never mind bags to carry brochures and stuff in. I hesitantly accepted a $5 Starbucks gift card from one vendor at a press event, and completely bypassed another stand where cash bribes (not much, just a few dollars) were being proffered - cash crosses the line into the tasteless and unethical if you ask me.