15 Wild And Wacky Scenes From Cisco Live 2016

Cisco Live 2016 In Las Vegas

Do you remember all those plastic swords everywhere? Or that guy wearing a full "Cisco cloud" suit? Were you one of the thousands of Cisco Live attendees who sported those ridiculous blinking light cowboy hats inside the new T-Mobile Arena?

The most attended Cisco Live event in the company's history sported a slew of high-impact announcements, including new solutions and partnerships, as well as a variety of fun activities and hands-on training for the 28,000 in attendance.

CRN takes a last look at this month's popular Cisco Live event at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas that should bring back some fond memories.

Did You See Her?

A women painted head to toe as the inside of a data center posed for hours at Gigamon's booth inside the World of Solutions exhibit. The exhibit was the size of several football fields and hosted more than 100 vendors from SimpliVity and SpringPath to IBM and Microsoft.

So Many Swords

If you attended Cisco Live, it was hard not to notice the hundreds of glowing plastic swords being carried around. Plixer, a provider of flow analysis solutions, gave away hundreds of swords for anyone who sat in on a quick presentation about the company.

Scrutinizer, the word glowing on the sword, is the foundation of Plixer's incident response and behavior analysis architecture, which performs the collection, threat detection and reporting of all flow technologies on a single platform.

Maroon 5

It was a sight to see as tens-of-thousands of Cisco Live participants sported blinking cowboy hats and shiny accessories given to them inside the T-Mobile Arena to watch Maroon 5 play hits like 'Moves Like Jagger' and 'Animals'. Anyone wearing a Cisco Live badge was able to enter the arena that holds nearly 20,000 people on a first-come, first-serve seating basis.

NAO Robot

IBM and Hilton hotel built a Watson-powered concierge robot that was a popular sight in the World of Solutions exhibit. The robot, called Connie, was able to answer questions from people passing by.

Hilton is testing the artificial intelligence-powered robot for its chain of hotels in the US through a partnership with IBM's Watson program.

Helping The Hungry

Cisco set up a large station where anybody could jump in to spare a few minutes or hours helping to build meal packages for those in need across the globe.

Since 2012, Cisco and the Stop Hunger Now organization have been working together to end world hunger. They have delivered more than 964,000 packaged meals and raised nearly $280,000.

Robot Small Talk

Several of Cisco's iRobot Ava 500's could be seen roaming the exhibit floors making small talk with Cisco Live attendees. The telepresence robot Ava, armed with video and voice technologies, shocked many people by being able to communicate with them in real-time, even though the person controlling Ava wasn't even in the same building.

Taking The Cloud To A New Level

One man stood out from the rest in the audience during Cisco's packed keynote presentation inside the Mandalay Bay Convention Center by wearing a full "cloud" suit.

During her keynote at Cisco Live, Karen Walker, senior vice president and chief marketing officer at Cisco, pointed the man out, saying he was "Taking Cisco's cloud" to the next level.

Welcome To NERV

One of Cisco's Network Emergency Response Vehicle (NERV) was on display with attendees granted an in-depth look at how the vehicle provides communications among first responders during crisis situations such as earthquakes or hurricanes.

Powered by its on-board generator and armed with a satellite dish that provides bandwidth for voice, video and data applications, NERV has touched down at ground zero during such catastrophic events including the earthquake in Haiti 2010 and Hurricane Sandy in 2012.

CRN TV took an in-depth look inside NERV.

Virtual Reality

Dozens of attendees waited in line to put on the Oculus Rift headsets connected to Cisco gear to get a glimpse of the virtual and augmented reality future. This attendee was in the midst of going through a factory floor mock training exercise in a large warehouse.

Cisco Arcade Room

A designated area for classic arcade video games was a hot spot for attendees looking to get their game on in between programs and presentations. Games included the original Donkey Kong, Pac-Man and Galaga, to name a few.

The IoT Bus

The Internet of Things was a common theme throughout Cisco Live. A large space inside the World of Solutions exhibit was specifically focuseed around Cisco IoT solutions enabling the transportation industry to become more productive, effective and safer.

This miniature bus (pictured) was equipped with Cisco technologies that collect and analyzes data in real-time, such as how many people are on the bus and if the driver was going faster than the speed limit.

Inside Cisco Catalyst 6500

Attendees were able to get an inside look (literally) at Cisco's Catalyst 6500 Series (pictured). More than 45,000 customers have made the Catalyst 6500 Series their platform of choice, according to Cisco.

Mini Industrial IoT

SAP set up a miniature demonstration using Cisco UCS and SAP HANA showing how the combined technology enables IoT in the Industrial market – providing cost savings and improving efficiency for businesses.

Navigating Through Cisco Live

With several large exhibits to walk through and presentations going on throughout the four-day event, Cisco Live participants were thankful for the large touch screen "help desks" where attendees could easy search for vendors, booths and presentation locations in a variety of ways. Attendees could also simply scan their badges to tell where and when they needed to be for a certain program.

28,000 Strong

It noteworthy to mention that last week's event at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas was Cisco's most attended Cisco Live event in the company's history, according to Cisco executives. Participates had their hands full during the four-day event with keynotes from the likes of CEO Chuck Robbins and actor Kevin Spacey, a variety of hands-on engineering training, large exhibits full of dozens of vendors and many new solutions and partnerships unveiled that will undoubtedly impact customers and channel partners.