Corporate presence is always a mighty good reason to pay exorbitant money to have a booth.
In bad cities like San Francisco, Chicago, and New York where the unions are so strong where you can't change a burnt out lightbulb or plug in a extension cord without having union goon do it for you for a price. Dilbert could have turned the Alice incident around with the claim they were trying to protect the chair where every 50th visitor to the booth would sit, receive a free app , and get his picture taken with Alice or he could hold up a sign saying Alice worked for the other company.
Either way next year the booth will be will be better than ever, with foam corporate logos.