Over the last few days I have been spending a lot of time at the Newport Seafood and Wine Fest. As a memeber of the Newport Chamber of Commerce Young Professionals I volunteer to work in a booth. This year I also had my own product to demo there, Barleyboard. I set up Barleyboard to display the Adelsheim Vineyard wines we were pouring. I had it hooked to a 26″ TV in our booth. Here is a quick list of thing I learned by working the booth and observing the people.

1. It is tough to complete with a $20 cardbourd cutout that people can take pictures with.
2. Cheap plastic give-aways attract a lot of people, especially green spider rings, but not orange ones.
3. People don’t know what I QR Code is
4. People are wary of trying new things, like scanning a QR COde even if they may know what it is
5. Both the cellular and WiFi networks at large festivals get congested making menu interaction problematic.

The TV needs to be at least 7 feet high or else it gets lost in the crowd.

6. Presentation and design will be the selling point. Voting and tweets are bonus features.