Marshall Yard:

I mentioned last week, in discussing our lead-up to NPE 2009 in Chicago, how crucial scheduling is to ensuring flawless execution in the exhibit marketing business. In fact, my aim is to help exhibitors understand that exhibit houses will actually incentivize your understanding and cooperation with the schedule of activities. Yes, those are dollars and cents I’m talking about, not just your outlook calendar.

Like the book about procrastination that I’ve been meaning to read, a schedule can often be a looming, semi-important aspect of our daily lives that needs to get done, but for which tomorrow is suitable date for catch-up. Certainly, as the exhibit house, there is a laundry list of actions that need to take place within a scheduled exhibit delivery. Some of these require cooperation with a exhibitor’s trade show coordinator, and so making the coordinator’s job easier is a part of our job. What are the biggest challenges for trade show coordinators in delivering on tasks as scheduled?

Let’s start by touching on the basic tasks that involve exhibitor cooperation, and go from there:

• Graphic Artwork/Layout Due Dates - After being given an elevation that illustrates where graphics will be placed within the display booth, an exhibitor must collaborate with their graphics provider, and marketing team, to determine what messages need to be conveyed within the exhibit, and how best to relate that to the exhibition audience at the upcoming show. After this concert is complete, they deliver these high resolution graphic files (we’re not talking .jpg’s or .pdf’s) to their exhibit partner.
• Graphic Proof Approval - Once the exhibit house receives these high-res files, they take the necessary steps to transpose this onto the elevation which was given the client. Sometimes there may be discrepancies between what was originally requested in elevations, and what files were provided (it often becomes apparent if a graphics provider does not understand the context of the exhibit - they may need more information to make sure everything “fits” correctly”).
• Ordering services - Deadlines abound in the tradeshow world, and as we’ve mentioned here on the blog, there are plenty of hefty financial incentives to meet those deadlines. Knowing what kind of lead retrieval, floral, cleanup and other services is highly important to being able to make decisions in an orderly manner.

One thing everyone agrees on is the sheer volume of tasks entailed in executing a flawless exhibit setup - it’s quite an exhaustive list, and yet exhibit houses and exhibitors claim success on a frequent basis.

What is the most challenging aspect, as a trade show coordinator, in executing those tasks that require extensive exhibitor participation? We’d love to hear your comments!