Every new venue presents new acoustic challenges for exhibitors. Deniz Daldal of Design Interaction in Emerald Hills (part of unincorporated San Mateo county, near Redwood City), wondered if the bass ringing in his room was due to the cement in the floor and back walls. "We need more stuff," he told me, but there was no more stuff at his disposal.

Problems were also manifesting in the light fixtures, which were rattling due to the prodigious bass of the JBL DD-66000 Everest loudspeakers. Here, one of his associates, Grayson Wolf, is engaged in an act of creative desperation, trying to damp a rattling light fixture by using his skateboard to push paper into a crevice. And you thought you had everything in your toolbox.