Substitute surfing for candy, and that's more or less how I imagined the ASR tradeshow would be. Nixon watches would litter the floor for the taking, every-color Nikes would be boxed in my size with matching socks, Yadin Nicol would invite me to a party and I'd assure him I "might try to stop by." Magical, magical ASR.
Today I zipped down to the convention center for my first real experience with the show, and, I figured, to load the back seat of my car with free loot and industry contacts. So like a kid emptying his Halloween bag after Trick-or-Treat, let's see how I made out.
Convention center parking: $10
Hours spent wandering the aisles like a shady predator outside the ballet academy: 2.5
People I met: 1
Gear I scored fo-phree: none
Dreams shattered: a couple
It turns out that ASR isn't about fun; it's about business (it's sometimes about business AND fun, but not really the latter without the former). For people with nothing to buy or to sell, it's not that awesome. Imagine walking around the set while they film Pirates of the Caribbean IV and seeing that the effects are digital, the accents are phony and that Keira Knightley somehow has been hiding a hideous third ear. It would take the glow off the movie for you. ASR is sort of like that - it reduces the glamor of shiny new surf stuff to the cold reality of a commercial transaction. Orders, price points, SKU's - where's the surfing? Where's the chocolate river and the little fat boy drinking from it?
But that's the business, and the business is fine. It lets a few lucky folks buy food and shelter without donning a corporate jumpsuit - or, at least, they get to compromise for the corporate boardshorts. Wow, that last sentence there was a real train wreck. I'm going to leave it to remind myself never to write something that inane again. Phooey.
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