In reply to Mike Schinkel.

It takes an awful lot of WordPress hosting clients to cover $100k and so any good marketing director would look to maximize a return on such a large investment.

What Pantheon did is standard fare for trade shows in any other part of the industry.

100% agreed. This was strategic and clever marketing and taking full advantage of a huge opportunity, as any marketing director/business that has a savvy marketing team would have done.