The Beautiful Girls At Macworld. Just Don’t Call Them Booth Babes

Posted by The Wall Street Geek You Know You're a Geek When... Saturday, January 28th, 2012

SAN FRANCISCO, MACWORLD/IWORLD 2012 — Girls, girls, girls. There seems to be more beautiful models here at Macworld than ever. Models are a great asset for companies. Especially the newer companies. I spoke to a few girls this afternoon to get some insight into their job.

This is what they told me…

The girls that work the booths at trade shows — better known as Booth Babes — are often criticized for being all body and no brains. They’re seen as a throwback to an earlier, sexist era. The use of Booth Babes has always been popular in industries like automotive, but is growing in tech. There were so many booth babes at CES in January, the BBC did a story about it.

First off, they don’t like being called Booth Babes.

“I’m really offended by Booth Babe,” said one model. “I find it degrading.”

They are models and screeners. Screeners weed out the crowd. They screen passersby and tell them basic info about the products. They only get an hour of training prior to the show. If the person is interested in finding out more, they are directed to a salesperson.

The girls are hired because they are extroverts. A lot of company reps are too shy to work the crowd, especially in technology. They do the work of bringing prospects into the booth to talk about the products.

The girls are hired from modeling agencies like the Creative Alliance modelling agency in San Francisco. There are only a few of them that circulate and most know each other.

They are paid according to height. Taller girls make more money that shorter girls. Most make between $30 and $50 an hour. Companies screen the girls by Skype to make sure they can speak properly.

Many work the shows to supplement their income. Some are college graduates who use conventions to figure out what’s going on in fields like tech or medical.

Booth Babes often don’t know what they will be asked to wear at the show. They find out when they turn up at the convention. Some companies want the girls to wear skimpy outfits; others want them dressed in business suits. Dresses are usually available only in two sizes — small and medium. Taller girls have to squeeze into outfits too small for them.

One company rep said hiring very attractive girls can sometimes backfire. Customers just gawk at the girls and pay no attention to the products.

But Booth Babes are a good tactic for smaller, unknown companies, the rep said. Unknown companies with obscure products are often ignored. Having Booth Babes brings customers to the booth, even if they only want to leer at the girls.

“Any attention is better than no attention at all,” he said.

One girl, who asked not to be named, said she does about 30 conventions a year. This is her fifth year at Macworld. She owns a lot of Apple products, including an iPhone and iPad. She likes to work for the same companies, but since Apple has quit the show, a lot of them don’t come back.

Since she’s been doing it a long time, she has the luxury of picking the companies she works for. “Ninety nine percent of the time, the products are awesome,” she said. The companies take good care of the girls.

She gets a lot of attention from men.

“We get hit on all the time,” the model said. “Either they are too embarrassed to look at us, or they’re hitting on us relentlessly.”