I’m sure whatever booth Robbie checked out at CES is great, but the best booth at CES didn’t come from an ultrabook or smart TV manufactuer. Nope, it came from Audi. I am steadfast in my belief that it is BETTER. Like OMGHOLYSHITDONTEVENTRYTOARGUEWITHMEONTHISONE better. What makes it so great, exactly? Um, have you looked at the photos yet?
The Audi booth is a Bauhausian wet dream. Stark white floors gazed upon by a grid of fluorescent lighting topped off by a sheet of mirrors. The outside is surrounded by panels spaced just far enough apart to let the light escape onto the show floor. Inside are cars of the present, cars of the future, and interactive driving demos.
It helps that the booth is an oasis amidst a desert of car audio tech — which I’m pretty has been in stasis since the mid-2000s — but you could have put this among the Sony’s and Samsung’s and Microsoft’s and it still would have stood out. Beyond any rationalization I could provide, the booth has a visceral awe factor when you see it in person. Its pull is magnetic. I could care less about anything they had on display (oh wait, take that back, Tron concept car, do want), yet the words “ooh, shiny” literally came out of my mouth.