Tag Archive for: booth

As third RSA Conference without ‘booth babes’ nears, no one seems to miss them

In March 2015, RSA Conference organizers made news by contractually insisting that vendors pitch their security wares without the help of “booth babes,” a first such ban for the technology industry.

Next week’s RSAC in San Francisco will be the third without the babes, so I checked in with event staff to see if the policy had evolved at all and how it has been accepted by various stake-holders.  

Here’s how the contract language read in 2015:

All Expo staff are expected to dress in business and/or business casual attire. Exhibitors should ensure that the attire of al staff they deploy at their booth (whether the exhibitor’s direct employees or their contractors) be considered appropriate in a professional environment. Attire of an overly revealing or suggestive nature is not permitted. Examples of such attire may include but are not restricted to:

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Network World Paul McNamara

Check out RSA minus the booth babes

Sans booth babes
1 042315 rsa boothbabes

With booth babes – the provocatively clad women meant to draw more visitors to exhibit booths – officially banned from RSA Conference 2015, vendors were left to find alternatives, and they rose to the occasion. From security celebrities to food to quirky giveaways, attendees at the show were lured to spend time at exhibits they might have otherwise missed amid the crush of the crowd. Here are a few of them.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Network World Tim Greene

Does this Marilyn Monroe impersonator violate RSA’s ban on booth babes?

When it became public last month that “booth babes” would be banned from this week’s RSA Conference, most applauded. However, others warned that the subjectivity of such a dress code – language here and at bottom of this post — would make the policy problematic.

Meet Marilyn Monroe impersonator Camille Larrea, pictured above. She was working the RSA booth of SIEM vendor AccelOps.

Booth babe?

RSA says no.

But trust me when I tell you it depends on who you ask, because I put the question and picture out to a bunch of trade-show savvy colleagues and of the 11 who responded, six say we’re looking at a booth babe whose presence violates the new RSA policy … and five insist the first six are wrong.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Network World Paul McNamara

RSA Conference bans ‘booth babes’

In what may be a first for the technology industry, RSA Conference 2015 next month apparently will be bereft of a long-controversial trade-show attraction: “booth babes.”

While RSA does not use the term “booth babe” specifically, language in this year’s exhibitor contract makes clear what style of salesmanship is no longer welcome at this event, according to a post by security expert Bill Brenner on the LiquidMatrix blog. That language reads:

All Expo staff are expected to dress in business and/or business casual attire. Exhibitors should ensure that the attire of al staff they deploy at their booth (whether the exhibitor’s direct employees or their contractors) be considered appropriate in a professional environment. Attire of an overly revealing or suggestive nature is not permitted. Examples of such attire may include but are not restricted to:

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Network World Paul McNamara