Try futuristic vending machines for free in Peavey Plaza tomorrow

If you can't spend an hour playing with your vending machine, is that truly living?

Well, downtowners can have that experience as many times as they want tomorrow in Peavey Plaza, where a huge bank of state-of-the-art vending machines are going to be on display and dispensing candy, cookies, chips and drinks for free.

The event is an effort by the National Automatic Merchandising Association to woo younger audiences and drum up interest in their latest machines. The so-called "Gratitude Tour" has already been to Austin and New York, and is stopping off in the Mill City from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. tomorrow.

The new 2bU machines will be there, which dispense organic, vegan, or locally made snacks for health nuts and foodies. There's a cotton candy vending machine. And the flashiest one is likely the new Diji-Touch machine, which is like a gigantic iPad mounted on the front of a conventional vending machine. Users can flick through choices, watch videos and even get nutritional info on their snacks.

But let's not lose sight of the most important thing here--everything is going to be free. Visitors can skip wrinkled-dollar-bill purgatory and will be free to go bananas. There will be freebies from all the big names: Pepsi, Coke, Kraft, Mars, Dr. Pepper, Hershey's, Frito-Lay, etc., etc., etc.

Check out a video of someone playing with one of the Diji-Touch machines below: