Take a quick stroll across the floor of the San Diego Convention Center and, well, we read that’s pretty hard to do this week. The plethora of free goodies can slow one down, according to The San Diego Union-Tribune, which writes that one microbiologist took a break from all that walking by settling down to try on a pair of Crocs, size 6. And guess what? They were free.

“You are in a major swag show,” Carol Lavrich, a business-development specialist with the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine in Rockville, Maryland, tells the paper. “Big Pharma is notorious for the big swag,” Phillip Christmas, an account executive with the Geo Group, a Wisconsin firm that provides translations to biotechs, also confides to the paper. “They do it for doctors and hospitals. Now they’re doing it for the industry.”

KansasBio is passing out NCAA-size basketballs and the Chicago Technology Park is handing out miniature remote-control cars. What else? Drumsticks, baseballs, hacky sacks. Each year, the law firm of Fish & Richardson gives away stuffed sea creatures. “We have people who come every year because they have a collection,” Roxanne Smith of the firm’s marketing department, tells the paper.

Then there’s the food. Some vendors rolled out Coronas from Mexico and Saranac Pale Ales from New York. BioNebraska carved up bite-sized tidbits from Omaha Steaks. The French pavilion overflowed with salads, sandwiches and plastic flutes of Saint Hilaire, a sparkling wine.

But in the booth occupied by Asiatic Clinical Research, a lab based in Bangalore, India, and Alpharetta, Georgia, the freebies were meager: fridge magnets and miniature Hershey bars. “This is the first time we have had a booth here,” director Mithra Bindhu tells the paper. “This is all we can afford right now. Besides, people aren’t really here for the giveaways.”

That may be true, writes the Union-Tribune, but listen to what Rick Allely, business development coordinator for Sioux City, Iowa, has to say while sitting at a table devoid of candies, toys, tchotchkes. What was he handing out?

“For the right company that wants to relocate,” he said, smiling, “land.”

Hat tip to Pharmagossip