tarabell
05-02-2007, 03:51 PM
Last Sunday my husband and I visited the LA Times Festival of Books at UCLA. This is an enormous yearly outdoor book fair with a zillion booths with all the major booksellers showing off their latest releases, plus author panels, lectures and book signings. It’s free to the public and a lot fun to see what’s new and there are usually lots of discounted books, so we go every year. But this year there were two other interesting events.
First, there was something new right at the Festival entrance – Toyota’s “Highway to the Future” mobile exhibit. This is a huge trailer that travels around the country with interactive exhibits inside that teach about hybrid technology, environmental issues and alternative fuels. Here is the link that tells you all about it: http://www.highwaytothefuture.com/#/about/
Outside the trailer Toyota had all three of their hybrids on display as well – the Prius, HyHi, and Camry, with their hoods open and information laid out for the taking. People were really interested in looking over the cars and since thousands attended the book festival this weekend, they had a captive audience. There were two Toyota reps standing outside to answer questions about the cars, and a line of about 30 people waiting to get inside the trailer. And that was just at 9:30am, shortly after the festival opened. (At some places on the Highway Tour, they have it so you can test drive the vehicles, but they weren’t set up to do that here.) I literally dragged my husband by the hand over and had a great time looking inside the cars and at the engines which I never had a chance to do before. Showing off their cars right along with the mobile exhibit was I thought great PR. When else (other than a HF) would the public normally ever have that opportunity? Who’d want to make a special trip to a dealer and get annoyed by a salesman?
While I was inside the Prius I overheard the one of the reps answering a lady’s question about its mileage and saying “well the mileage you get is going to depend on how you drive of course…” That was clearly my cue. I came around the car (I felt like Chris Hanson here ;) ) and said well if you’d be interested to know the best place to learn how to drive a hybrid and learn about all its capabilities, it’s cleanmpg. She had this blank who are you smile and then I explained that I owned a Honda hybrid and that I often get over 60mpg on my Honda even though it’s only rated at 50 epa. She looked a little amazed at this but I guess as I looked “normal” and had a spouse at my side she figured I wasn’t a weirdo. I wrote down the website for her and of course the Toyota rep had never heard of it, but he was interested in hearing that there were people who actually care about driving for mileage. I wished I had a whole fistful of cmpg business cards or something I could have left there. Their reactions were fairly positive, along the lines of -- “You can really improve your mpg without the car just doing it for you? Hmmm.” Husband was laughing quietly like “yeah, if only they drove with her.”
The second most interesting thing was that I practically ran into Ralph Nader who was looking at books in one of the booths. He was there with an aide because he was on an author panel with journalist Marc Cooper. I noticed Ralph is over 6 ft tall and he usually looks kind of rumpled on tv but looked rather handsome in a suit. I felt too awkward to speak to him or anything but confess I would have liked to follow him around to see what he reads.
As far as the rest of the Festival, I found a Indian cookbook on sale for $3 with some new things I’ve never tried, so my husband was very happy about the possible prospects for dinner this week. :) Also the LA County Library had a booth where they showed us how members can download all kinds of stuff for free that I didn’t know I even had access to --like medical journals and scientific periodicals. These would be very expensive to subscribe to or restricted to professional organizations online. I bet lots of people have no idea of the power of their library card.
I didn't see many books on the environment or global warming, but I imagine at next year’s event this may be a much hotter topic in publishing, and the Festival organizers will likely continue to link with other “green” issues. I think Toyota absolutely hit a home run with their exhibit though.
First, there was something new right at the Festival entrance – Toyota’s “Highway to the Future” mobile exhibit. This is a huge trailer that travels around the country with interactive exhibits inside that teach about hybrid technology, environmental issues and alternative fuels. Here is the link that tells you all about it: http://www.highwaytothefuture.com/#/about/
Outside the trailer Toyota had all three of their hybrids on display as well – the Prius, HyHi, and Camry, with their hoods open and information laid out for the taking. People were really interested in looking over the cars and since thousands attended the book festival this weekend, they had a captive audience. There were two Toyota reps standing outside to answer questions about the cars, and a line of about 30 people waiting to get inside the trailer. And that was just at 9:30am, shortly after the festival opened. (At some places on the Highway Tour, they have it so you can test drive the vehicles, but they weren’t set up to do that here.) I literally dragged my husband by the hand over and had a great time looking inside the cars and at the engines which I never had a chance to do before. Showing off their cars right along with the mobile exhibit was I thought great PR. When else (other than a HF) would the public normally ever have that opportunity? Who’d want to make a special trip to a dealer and get annoyed by a salesman?
While I was inside the Prius I overheard the one of the reps answering a lady’s question about its mileage and saying “well the mileage you get is going to depend on how you drive of course…” That was clearly my cue. I came around the car (I felt like Chris Hanson here ;) ) and said well if you’d be interested to know the best place to learn how to drive a hybrid and learn about all its capabilities, it’s cleanmpg. She had this blank who are you smile and then I explained that I owned a Honda hybrid and that I often get over 60mpg on my Honda even though it’s only rated at 50 epa. She looked a little amazed at this but I guess as I looked “normal” and had a spouse at my side she figured I wasn’t a weirdo. I wrote down the website for her and of course the Toyota rep had never heard of it, but he was interested in hearing that there were people who actually care about driving for mileage. I wished I had a whole fistful of cmpg business cards or something I could have left there. Their reactions were fairly positive, along the lines of -- “You can really improve your mpg without the car just doing it for you? Hmmm.” Husband was laughing quietly like “yeah, if only they drove with her.”
The second most interesting thing was that I practically ran into Ralph Nader who was looking at books in one of the booths. He was there with an aide because he was on an author panel with journalist Marc Cooper. I noticed Ralph is over 6 ft tall and he usually looks kind of rumpled on tv but looked rather handsome in a suit. I felt too awkward to speak to him or anything but confess I would have liked to follow him around to see what he reads.
As far as the rest of the Festival, I found a Indian cookbook on sale for $3 with some new things I’ve never tried, so my husband was very happy about the possible prospects for dinner this week. :) Also the LA County Library had a booth where they showed us how members can download all kinds of stuff for free that I didn’t know I even had access to --like medical journals and scientific periodicals. These would be very expensive to subscribe to or restricted to professional organizations online. I bet lots of people have no idea of the power of their library card.
I didn't see many books on the environment or global warming, but I imagine at next year’s event this may be a much hotter topic in publishing, and the Festival organizers will likely continue to link with other “green” issues. I think Toyota absolutely hit a home run with their exhibit though.