ISC West Bans Booth Babes
By John Honovich, Published Mar 22, 2018, 09:14am EDTBooth babes, goodbye.
Technically, ISC West banned them 2 years ago with a 'staffing attire' requirement but it looks like ISC West is going to actually start enforcing it in 2018.
Last year, there was an uproar over IPVM's report: The Sleaziest Booth Of ISC West - Rapid Response and our criticism of the company's booth babe lineup:
With 500+ votes on the poll, almost half found this acceptable and with 100+ comments, numerous industry professionals defended it:
- "The recent phenomenon of Politics and PC penetrating into the business world has been sad to see."
- "You guys clucking at this should take your skirts off. Businesses since the beginning of time have used shiny objects to get prospects within proximity to pitch them." [emphasis added]
- "This is SIN City don't like it don't go. Those girls at the show where beautiful and where in my opinion conservative but as soon as you walked outside man! oh man! what a show! all kinds of flavors. That Vegas. Grow a backbone and lets make America great again." [emphasis added]
- "As far as the sex and looks of these public relation professionals, I think that’s relatively simple. First the sex, well that’s pretty much a no brainer. The alarm dealer universe is likely 95% male dominated, so hiring qualified females really makes good business sense."
- "All this puritanical outrage is boiling down to the fact that the women were attractive and the necklines of their clothing exposed too much skin for their liking." [emphasis added]
- "So long as there are companies who choose to use this as a marketing tactic, and there are women, who by their own free choice, choose to accept the job as booth babe, let there be booth babes!" [emphasis added]
Attire Requirements for ISC West
In 2016, ISC West added 'staffing attire' requirements:
Evidently, contrary to their own rules, it was not 'strictly enforced' in 2017.
However, ISC West told IPVM now that:
We are currently communicating with all ISC West exhibitors to remind them of the policy for proper attire. It’s our hope that they will take the feedback from us, attendees, and the public to heart this year and if not, we will determine the best course of action to remedy violations brought to our attention. To that end, I can confirm that the rules for attire will be in effect again at ISC West 2018. It’s very important to us that our attendees feel comfortable during their experience at the show.
Vote / Poll
5 reports cite this report:
Comments (78)
It's a professional event, people should be professionally attired, or if casual then "business casual". At least in this respect women will finally start being held to the same professional standards of men instead of being allowed special privileges.
Now if the organizers will finally start cracking down on booths that grab people and scan there badges without telling them what it is about or giving consent, we'll be making real progress.
Attire of an expletive nature? Was that really a problem?
Is this a valid workaround?
It's about time

Personally, I feel those types of booths are substituting women for lack of content and innovation. If you need that to draw people to your booth, you should seriously rethink your approach, as well as your product.
I've been modifying cars and showing them since I was 12 years old, the same type of thing happens at car shows, for similar reasons.
I used to put up a sign next to my car, because I was sick of people leaving fingerprints all over it. Excuse my choice of words, but it got the point across, haha. Well done for highlighting the problem, equally well done for enforcing the rules on the part of ISC.
Sounds like we are back in highschool...
I hate to say it but I actually voted disagree. If companies have a lack of product and want to objectify women - let them. I skip these booths because I see this as a lack of content worth drawing anyone in. It is not as though someone stopping in to ogle is a good prospect.
I say this having worked at an employer in the distant past whose CEO and CFO flew out with us and went from booth babe to booth babe, only stopping at the booths that served alcohol. That type of neanderthal is a relic. If manufacturers want to pay significant(?) funds to a woman to incite for boorish behavior, let them. If anything it illustrates what type of companies NOT to work for and shines a light on them.
I had to vote disagree - but not because I am against the ISC Proper Attire Policy.
What I am against is the response from your ISC representative.
"It’s our hope that they will take the feedback from us, attendees, and the public to heart this year and if not, we will determine the best course of action to remedy violations brought to our attention."
That may be the wishy-washyest policy statement ever uttered. Doesn't even mention objectification of women in the industry - at their show.
And we all know why... cuz ISC is afraid of offending a company that has a huge booth spend every year.
Nevertheless, I think they are going about it all wrong.
If they set a standard, well then set and enforce that damn standard already.
They issued their decree in 2016? How? By posting it on their website? I never heard anything about it. And apparently nobody else did either.
Same for 2017 as Rapid Response ignored the policy. And ISC let them do it.
So now, a year later, they issue that kind of soggy response to IPVM's reach out for comment on how this year will be any different than last?
If they had made it clear back in 2016 that they were serious and actually enforced their own policy, then we would not be discussing this now.
"To that end, I can confirm that the rules for attire will be in effect again at ISC West 2018."
Forgive me for laughing silently into my hand.
"It’s very important to us that our attendees feel comfortable during their experience at the show."
This comment so completely ignores the objectification argument that it is clearly intentionally obtuse. Attendee comfort? What about all the other women in our industry?
Be Bold ISC. It actually makes everything easier, as taking a strong stance against objectification of women can be empowering to your organization... (see last 6 months in American society)
...and you will lose zero booth revenue.
I don't think booth babes have been banned at all. They didn't say "no cleavage", and they didn't say "skirts have to be below the knee line". They just banned "overly revealing" attire. So by definition "revealing" attire is still permitted.
I'm not in favor of political correctness in general; I agree with U#4's take - let the market decide. Just because a practice continues *does not* mean it's profitable, we don't have to look far to find unprofitable business practices that still take place.
With 100 votes so far, like last year, people are fairly split, clear majority support but over 40% are against the attire guidelines:
Accidentally left the apparently NSFH “ISC West Bans Booth Babes” article displayed on the familial PC, which triggered this exchange:
13 year old son: So what’s up with Booth Babes, Dad?
Me: Ah... well, the term ‘Booth Babe’ is best understood as a slightly pejorative moniker given to certain associates of a vendor’s temporary sales staff; often at an industry event, who are primarily hired for their aesthetic capabilities and typically use a minimalistic, and usually ostentatious, wardrobe philosophy. Very often these would be females possessing a fair degree of nubility.
Son: C’mon, I already know what a ‘Booth Babe’ is, or at least I thought I did till that explanation. But, have you ever seen them at a show?
Me: Oh, I’m sure I have, but you just kinda tune them out after a while as just so much noise. Anyway, it’s been years since I’ve been to one of them, and I doubt I’ll be going to any in the future...
Son: Cuz they banned the Babes?
I'm not a fan of booth babes. That being said, how will they tell the difference between booth babes and risque RSMs who have booth duty?
"You can't be here!"
"I'm the VP of Marketing."
The Australian shows stopped in a few years ago and the show is not as good now sorry to say.
Had an interesting conversation with one of the "booth babes" while I was in line for lunch last year @ ISC W. She was actually Ms. March for Tilted Kilt (or some place like that) and flew out to Vegas just about every month to be a "babe" in different shows. She claimed to make anywhere from 4-7K for one week of standing around.
Personally - I'd take that job/payout but I doubt anyone wants to see my man boobs, Austin-Power-chest hair or 35yr+ man-gut strolling the show floor.....
....but in case they do, let me know. I'm for hire and I can suppress shame for adequate cash payouts.
This is going to be our second year exhibiting at ISC West
We have not received any official notice about a dress code
I assume it is in the fine print in one of the many documents that they sent us but I have not seen anything specific
With regard to booth babes the logic makes sense as far as them trying to enforce a more business like environment
I do agree with many of the other commentators that anyone that has a real product does not need flesh to sell it
However, having spent 20 years of my life in sales, Men prefer to buy from Women when the women are just as knowledgeable or even a little less knowledgeable than men
Women do have that unfair advantage
I don’t believe that in 2018 with everything going on in the world as far as the women’s movement is concerned we can really expect that a little more focus on the subject would not trickle into our industry
The reason this has gone on and will continue to go on to some degree is because of how human nature is
I will venture to say that there will be more sophisticated attractive women at the show with the whole glasses look that Tina Fey became famous for since that is the trend of where the world is going
I have considered going the booth babe route in the past, but the wife nixed those ideas pretty quickly. In a way she did us a favor, it caused us to really focus on how to draw people in
We decided to focus on integration. With so many distributors just simply handing out line cards and candy. We figured, lets show people what differentiates us.
It worked, at this past ISC East we had one of the busiest booths. We had various manufacturers bring customers to our booth to show them what we were doing
Bottom line is we spend a lot of money on these shows. We need to be able to get real results. One of the ideas we floated for this year was for me to dress up as a mascot to draw attention to us. Once they are in our booth because of the spectacle. We will get a moment of attention to try to turn them into customers. I am still up in the air, but what if I dressed as a giant Peach or something similar. Some good clean fun and of course no cleavage showing.....
How totally hypocritical. The show is in Las Vegas! The event organizers have no issue holding the show in the sex capitol of North America to achieve the highest attendance possible, which is fueling the adult industry indirectly.
What subjective measurements applies to the iscwest police These people deserve sharia law. Inclusive of the glbt .
ISC can patrol the show floor with Tyvek coveralls for the inappropriately dressed (and UM-8). That would solve the problem.
What part of "free enterprise" seems to be missing from this concept?
Hint; it's not the "enterprise" part.
If a business chooses to represent themselves in this fashion, and if the women (&/or men) hired to play these roles are consenting adults acting of their own free will & are duly compensated for their services, then the event organizers, and unrelated activists, should butt out.
They are entitled to their opinions, certainly, as is everyone, no matter how regressive or oppressive those may be. But that entitlement ends when they interfere with the free expression or free enterprise of other consenting individuals - - especially those of their paying customers.
Being offended is a choice. That some choose to be offended by something is not adequate reason to restrict the freedoms of others who do not share that view.
I'm keeping this UNDISCLOSED, not because I care if anybody knows who I am, but to protect my current employer who may or may not agree with my personal opinion on this topic.
My 2 cents. In a competitive market, you do anything and everything that is legal and within your budget/power, to get attention and bodies in the booth during a trade show.
If Peacocking accomplishes that, then so be it.
While I agree there are many companies that use attractive people at the edge of their booths as a way to compensate for lack of substance in the booth, I've also seen this strategy employed by companies who have significant substance in the booth.
In 2009, when I was at XXX Company, we did 2 consecutive shows with essentially the same booth. We had just introduced a pretty exciting line of 1080p cameras with H.264 compression (that was still a pretty big deal back in 2009), that also had auto-focus and a lot of other features.
At ISC-West we just used regular XXX Company employees.
At ASIS (Anaheim) I hired to models (female) and trained them for a week before the show so they had a high level understanding of the new products, but more importantly knew who to direct inquiries to within the booth.
These were young, very attractive girls, but I had them dress in brightly colored, but non-revealing, outfits for the show.
The difference in booth attendance and leads generated was ASTOUNDING. On Day 2, some of the home office suits didn't like what I'd done, so we asked the girls not to come the morning of the 2nd day. Booth attendance PLUMMETED, so I convinced the suits to let me bring the girls back that afternoon, and attendance SKYROCKETED.
We talk about 'relics' and whatnot, but to be fair, our demographic is 90%+ men, and we are hardwired biologically to be attracted to certain physical attributes in women. There are multi-billion dollar pornography and entertainment busineses that prove this out every year, along with "sex sells" advertising permutating across practically every industry, in every corner of this planet. We can pretend it's archaic, we can pretend we're more 'civilized' than that, but the facts prove out a very different story.
Am I advocating for hiring models at every booth? Am I advocating for the objectivication of women? Certainly not. I'm just stating that to deny what drives us as human beings seems to be folly. I'm saying is it's an effective strategy, and we should stop pretending it isn't effective, or that it's somehow immoral.
ISC-West can run their show how they run their show. But it won't change a proven marketing strategy.
I think we can reach a compromise. Japanese Sex Bots are made of synthetic skin and therefore the "Zero Flesh Tolerance" policy of ISC does not apply. I also believe that your ROI for the cost of the robots can be realized within several shows.
It doesn't solve the problem of humans being replaced by technology - but that is the business we are all in.
"It’s very important to us that our attendees feel comfortable during their experience at the show."
Then supply us with rickshaws or Segways.
I guess I’ll have to wear less revealing attire this time. Are they going to monitor color choices too? Some are pretty tacky.
Without having been to the above event, it is hard for me to accurately feel the impact that these women are having to the culture of these events. With that, I don't totally see the problem. If I can go somewhere to check out the latest and greatest technology, AND enjoy my time there by talking with desirable people . . . it seems like a win win. If you are unable to separate good tech, with bad tech solely based off of who might be holding it . . . we are talking about a different issue entirely. Just one man's opinion.
I can hear the typical call to a Las Vegas advertising firm this year..."Yeah, so listen, I am getting a lot of flack from the Show Gods about featuring scantily clad beautiful women in my booth. This year, I want to make sure the models you provide are not scantily dressed, and are wearing conservative clothes. And another thing, I realize that even conservatively dressed models are still very beautiful and appealing, and will bring more people into my booth, but I want to be very sure I don't break any rules, so make sure to just supply me with ugly models!"
The Rapid Response girls all were within ISC's guidelines.
None were dressed "over revealing". Most of them were just stunningly beautiful, and obviously professional models.
There is nothing simple about this issue. Let's say that we can agree the goal is to get more people in the booth.
Here is a piece of IPVM research I would like to see.
Effectiveness: Women Models vs. Free Popcorn Machine
Effectiveness: Women Models vs. Free Happy Hour
Effectiveness: Women Models vs. Free Coffee Baristas
Effectiveness: Women Models vs. In-booth Entertainment
Effectiveness: Women Models vs. Comedians as Presenters
I agree that men, in general, need to show more respect for women. I feel guilty about my female colleagues who are reduced to pretending they are one of the guys, laugh and say they don't care. Of course they care.
My assertion is that a free drink, a fresh snack and a place to sit down can combat the cheesecake strategy. Companies with their big open booths and lots of couches are brilliant. However, we have a lot of products to show, take a reasonably-sized space for our budget and stuff it with live demos. SRO.
I would like to lure potential customers with leading technology that will help them become more profitable. However, popcorn, coffee, beer and women can get them in the door. It's just not our thing. Come and talk business. You might walk away with a mouse pad or luggage tag, because, well, we really are more focused on our products.
Until ISC says, "All men and women must appear homogeneous," this will not be solved. An attractive woman in a tailored business suit is an attractive woman and men are men.
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