Mobile World Congress has always been a special tradeshow because of its ability to attract the entire mobile computing and communications ecosystem: handset and operating system makers, application developers, carriers and infrastructure vendors. If claustrophobia is a measure of the 2013 Barcelona event's success, it's at the top of its game. Ericsson and Huawei carved pavilions the size of small villages and employed multiple layers of imposing body guards. Samsung, HTC and Nokia had enormous booths as well, but they were mere shopping malls compared to the Huawei village. HTC created a theater with all of the requisite ambience: black backdrops with a dark green glow for maximum drama, all to bathe the acrobats who stopped conference attendees in their tracks. Samsung set up a mini-booth at the top of the escalators within the subway stop for the event venue.