There was innovation aplenty, but the most compelling innovation was not in the upstairs labs that were supposed to feature innovation, nor was it in the basement booths where startup vendors spent their last marketing dollar on a show floor exhibit.
Downstairs, in a more casual dining room in the basement, a D.J. booth and a bar were conducive to lounging.
A distributor took the young Mr. Weisberg to a basement workshop where photo booths were assembled.
A business center in the basement houses three computer booths and a printer, and while an employee currently works there, the hotel is considering leaving it unstaffed because few guests use it.
Imagine a church basement filled with seven booths of wonder.
The music is so loud it could dislodge a filling and there's a photo booth in the basement for when you need pictorial evidence of something you'll regret in the morning.
Burnie Burns, co-founder and creative director of Rooster Teeth, is sitting in the company's booth in the basement of Cannes' Palais des Festivals at the MIPTV television industry market, one of a number of digital production companies here to parlay massive YouTube popularity into licensing deals with broadcasters.
From its booth in the basement hall at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center (the site of this year's conservative gathering) the D.C.-based firm is offering its "CPAC discount": For $695, you can get outfitted with a ready-to-roll hybrid PAC.
Descend into Lapidist Gems, 78 West 47th Street, (212) 840-8320, a gritty basement spot past the jewelers' booths, where Meelee and Hyeok Choe, a sister and brother from Korea, carve gems for the trade on the same grinders their father used.
After midnight on a rainy night last week in Chapel Hill, N.C., a large group of sorority women at the University of North Carolina squeezed into the corner booth of a gritty basement bar.
