The Trade Show and Demo Hall of Shame

Anyone who has used any form of technology for a significant length of time knows that things go wrong from time to time. Plugs get kicked. Operating systems crash. Files don't get backed up. It's all part of the fun.

During trade shows and demos, however, things are supposed to operate in a vacuum--a vacuum bordered with lollypops and happy unicorns and glowing with sunshine, where everything operates perfectly and the technology du jour is showcased to the full extent of its utopian potential.

That's the theory. But as the following ten trade show and demo embarrassments reveal, things don't always go according to plan...even when no complicating technology is involved. And of course no vacuum is impermeable to human error. Here are some embarrassing examples of what happens when Murphy's Law meets Moore's Law.