Hash Demo

A few years ago at Siggraph I was amazed at a demo of Martin Hash's Animation Master. What impressed me most was the awesome presentations skills of the guy running the demo. This guy was so good, I almost bought the product!

Turns out his name was Greg Rostami and was the main Hash A/M demo guy for 15 years until he quit in 2006. Although he no longer works for Hash, you still can see him on his website or MetaCafe doing magic tricks as apparently he does this on the side.

When Rob and I went to Siggraph this year, I was sad to see that Hash was no longer an exhibitor, but apparently Greg was still showing off his demo skills the last two years for a company called Topaz Labs. I must have missed it since I was hanging out at the International Lounge all day.

I found this on the AMA forums on why Greg left...

Greg left in late Spring 2006. In recent years the attendance and sales at tradeshows has steadily dropped, even when Greg was still with Hash. Greg left on his own to demo for Supercam. When that didn't work out, he wanted to return, but Martin decided not to do that and have James be the main demonstrator instead. It all came down to money.

Hash benefited greatly from Greg's demos over the years. At a busy show, his demo really boosted sales. At a slow show, it made much less of a difference because you have to have a minimum number of people in the crowd (or a crowd at all) to get the excitement going. The last few shows I did with Greg were sparsely attended and sales were low. Paying the extra money for Greg didn't pay off in those situations. Unfortunately, there are very few big sales shows left, it's mostly small shows now.

Greg's still got it though. He almost had me getting my wallet out.