Rants and Ramblings: random commentary about culture, media, politics, technology and whatnot.

ff06: follow the free food

They’ve been particularly generous this time around with the free food at Flash Forward. On the more minor (but greatly appreciated) end, I’m loving the tiny (and chilled!) bottles of water at the back of each conference room.

And then there’s the spreads.

Tuesday evening featured a reception in the Expo Hall, which included “make your own” fajita, mac & cheese and baked potato tables. They actually arranged things fairly ingeniously, scattering the various drink and food stations among the exhibitors, rather than in one corner of the room. This had the twofold effect of minimizing crowding and prodding people to at least glance at the various vendor booths as they sought out the free food.

The same thing went for today’s “light” deli lunch: Tables with sandwich fixins, chips, dessert bars and beverages scattered among the vendor booths. Good stuff.

I was also impressed with last night’s Adobe-sponsored “after-party” at the nearby Fox Sports Grill. We beat the rush at the bar by heading to the other side of the restaurant, where tables and an amazing dessert bar were available. We didn’t end up having to battle the crowd at the bar at all — At our seats, a waiter came by to take our drink orders — and, since we weren’t buying, he encouraged us to order our mixed drinks in tall glasses with the best liquor. And in the middle of our table, Flash-branded mini-bottles of apple cider were arranged around a tea light. Not too long afterward, I felt rather ghetto as I dashed back to the hotel shuttle pickup point, one of those mini-bottles peeking out of my pocket. I’ll be enjoying that tonight, as I’m not sure if it’s worth the trouble to bring it on the airplane.