Post-conference tips on how to be a good conference booth

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Now that the S.C. Manufacturing Conference & Expo is over, we are reflecting on all we learned … and all the swag we received. Because there is so. much. of. it.

Some was practical, like flashlights and pens and flashlight pens, tape measures and first-aid kids and lip balm. Some was unexpected, like homemade lollipops, Tide pens, wildflower seed packets and a pen-flashlight-screwdriver combo. A lot was candy. Like two-solid-days-of-Halloween amounts of candy.

There were also contest giveaways — Yeti coolers, Star Wars movie tickets (we’re still wondering if we won those… oh wait, we were not eligible) and the wheel of prizes.

But what struck us was the ways (aside from free stuff) companies lured in their vict…. er, interested parties. There was the company that had someone dressed as the devil (or, that close to Halloween, maybe the veil had been lifted and old Mephistopheles was visiting?) motioning people in with a pitchfork. There was the company that had a beer pong setup to grab attention. There was the boxing game that measured the force of your punch.

And of course, there was the F-16 flight simulator.

What did we take away (pun totally intended) from all this? We’re not entirely sure, but we find it super fascinating. So we’re just going to put on some of our new sunglasses, use some of our new hand sanitizer to clean up, put on some new lip balm and then take out our new notebook and write about it with our new pen. Or maybe we’ll just mull it all over while spinning our new fidget spinner.

Oh wait, our kid co-opted that on the first day.

Who do you vote as best booth from the expo? Comment below and let us know. And expo booth creators, take notes.