Marshall Yard:

Sorry for the awkward humor, but I’m heading to the second game of the White Sox’ double header today (weather permitting). The main pitch [sorry] of today’s trade show blog post hits at the three distinct business models present in our industry. First, there are design agencies, who design home run exhibits, and must broker out the manufacturing of the exhibit to various other vendors. Next, there are exhibit companies, who also create championship booth designs, but who possess the internal capabilities to create the displays that have been rendered for clients. Lastly, there are companies who are neither of the above: They contract with design firms - who then design exhibits for the exhibit company’s clientelle, later to be built by the exhibit firm. What are the advantages or disadvantages of these three business models?

Let’s consider the cost of designing: The agency will likely bill the exhibitor for design time. The exhibit company with in-house designers will [sometimes] consider design part of the exhibit overhead. Buried in the price of your exhibit is the time spent on your custom design, but based on a very rough estimate of how many hours any project of a certain scope would take to create. Other companies with in-house capabilities will still charge hourly for design time, so this second group is actually varied with how they handle design time. The third group - who contract their designs through a third party vendor - is similarly varied. Some may handle the design cost in the price of the exhibit - likely marked up to account for the risk therein. Others may charge up-front for design. When it comes to how designing is charged to exhibitors, it would be a smart idea to get clarification of this detail up front (like on the FIRST conversation with an exhibitor). In some occasions I would even try to get this information in writing. With a sour trade show economy, there are floundering firms whose behavior leaves something to be desired. What do you think the best business model is for your needs? Up front design charges, overhead treatment of designing, or direct billing, after the fact? More importantly, how do these business models affect execution or implementation of your exhibit design to a working, walking, talking exhibit booth? (more…)

Trade shows are like a parade in reverse - you have about three seconds to capture an attendee’s attention. Your exhibit, ideally, should be an accurate - and aesthetically pleasing - representation of the quality your company embodies.

Getting Started

As you ponder the size, type and functionality, ask yourself the following questions:

• What are your marketing objectives for this show? 
• How is your organization perceived in the industry? Do you hope to change that perception?
• Will your marketing objectives change for each show?
• What’s your ideal marketing environment (ie. private meetings, demonstrations)?
• At how many events do you exhibit nationally?
• What type of exhibit space will you reserve (island, inline, etc.)?
• How much are you able (or willing) to invest in your display?
• What’s most important to you - design or cost?
• Who is your audience? Does it vary by show or region?

Choosing a Trade Show Exhibit Display Company

It’s vital that you research the exhibit houses with which you’re interested in partnering. What is their reputation? Do they offer a full range of services? Will you get a dedicated account management team? What does their Website look like? Believe it or not, a Website - like an exhibit - can be quite telling with regards to marketing expertise and overall quality.

The best place to begin researching suppliers is to visit a trade show and chat with exhibitors. Ask about their suppliers’ level of service and ability to materialize what the exhibitor hoped to communicate.

When you’ve chosen one - or a few - potential exhibit partners, make sure to provide all information necessary: budget, time line, decision-making process, marketing objectives, etc. Try to avoid sending a general RFP or another form of “stock” invitation to bid. You’ll get the best results from direct, personalized communication.

This morning’s blog is not about push-up bras. I’ve had a few people email me asking me to blog about female supportive garments, but this is not the correct forum (the “Bro” or “Manzeer,” on the other hand, can be covered in future posts).

I’m actually going to talk about carpet padding.

Wait!! Don’t leave yet!!! I know that sounds like a ridiculously boring topic, but at the RSNA yesterday I experienced a first in trade show errors - WAY TOO MUCH CARPET PADDING.

I’ve never been in a home that had so much padding, much less an exhibit booth. It was to the extent that it was laborious to walk normally. I never really thought about too much pad being an issue, and I can’t pin down who would have made the error. Was it a client who insisted they wanted the super-upgrade, or was it the exhibit company that suggested they “set their booth apart” and really outdo themselves.

It was one of the biggest exhibits at RSNA, and you felt like you had 5 pound bricks tied to your shoes as you walked through their village of highly unimpressive mini-booths. Has anyone else seen this in practice elsewhere? Or am I the only one who found this so cumbersome and annoying?

This past Wednesday, I had the pleasure of driving down to McCormick Place with some of my favorite co-workers. The cast for the drive included Midnight Michigan, senior designer; Sasha Grove, manager extrordinaire; and Linda Railroad, working the oldest profession, sales. Update: I’ve finally received permission to clarify the origin of my coworkers’ names. These are porn names: Derived by the combination of our first pet’s name with the first street name that we remember living on (I will continue utilizing my McCormick Place psuedonym, since “Lucy Barton” makes for gender-confused blogging). With this crew, it’s always guaranteed to be quite a trip. The RSNA trade show was in day 3 of exhibit set-up, so let’s recap the day’s events:

When we realized that walking would have taken us over 17 hours that we decided to drive. Linda’s directions were denounced as “the long way.” Commute time: 1 hour, 15 minutes. We covered a lot of conversational ground on the way downtown: Trade show exhibit booths, obviously; how-to-drown skunks and other suburban pests; approved alternatives to watching football over the Thanksgiving holiday; and, finally, the potential drayage costs of parking on the convention center floor, versus the parking garage ($8,000 versus $15).

After arriving, we had a very stimulating time previewing the RSNA show. The Siemens rental exhibit booth is, as expected, surreal and impressive. Midnight seemed very pleased at seeing his 3-d renderings put into corporeal existance.

Other highlights from the trade show floor: One of our competitors, expected to fold within months, builds out one of their last exhibits; and our biggest “competitor” freaks out when we walk around their largest client’s booth. Name badges and company insignia can be quite intimidating, it seems. As innovators in the rental exhibit booth business, we were pleased to see them doing a mediocre job of imitating our custom rental system (ours utilizes custom built components that… well, just go to the website). They can try to imitate, but you can’t beat the real thing.

We took my way home (2 hour drive). It was a far more scenic route, and the subject matter was far less appropriate. Drowning dogs, Linda Railroad taking the “Midnight train,” and things got worse from there. H.R. will be busy sorting out who said what!

This week, the buzz around the office is all about the RSNA show (the Radialogical Society of North America’s annual meeting & expo). We have a multitude of outstanding clients at the RSNA’s. They range from Imaging on Call, who has a 20 ft. x 20 ft. custom rental booth, to the other extreme, Siemens, with a whopping 110 ft. x 220 ft. exhibit. Building a miniature “village” of different structures in a matter of a few days is fun to watch.

Word on the street (perception) is that trade shows will have fewer exhibitors in 2009, taking up less convention hall space, and with smaller exhibits, as the broader economy heads into recession. I think that’s true, by and large, but there are individual companies that are exceptions to this rule. Which side of the coin is your company on?

Tails:

Revenue is declining, profits are tighter (or in the red), and the marketing budget has a large “blip” that is “Trade Shows/Events.” In order to survive, your company decides to cut back everything, and the exposure and opportunity that a well executed trade show can offer gets thrown out with the “bathwater.” Hopefully these companies do not own their trade show exhibits - else they are wasting big marketing dollars that were invested when the economy was more favorable. In addition, there is a continuing expense of storing their exhibit property. This is a reality many companies are facing. Either scale down, or kill the program entirely.

Heads:

Your company has continued gobbling up market share, or may even be consuming competitors’ businesses via acquisition or attrition. I have a number of clients who are in this position: They are GROWING their tradeshow presence in order to undertake some major corporate agendie- Rebranding, launching new products (perhaps integrating their new acquisitions’ product line), or merely establishing their role as industry leaders. Sometimes they’re doing preventive work on potential misconceptions of who is struggling, and who is surviving, in the new economy. An effective trade show exhibit can allow a company to accomplish all of these goals in one space. A custom rental booth can be designed for each individual trade show, to ensure that the message that is conveyed is timely and precise for todays trade show audience, not last year’s.

Heads or tails, it seems like the company that rents their exhibit is better off. If you can’t afford to exhibit, you can cross off that expense for FY09. If you can afford to exhibit, you can do exactly what you want for 2009’s exhibition (e.g. - Siemens and Imaging On Call can build totally different designs for every show). It depends on what the reality is for your company, but at least you get to decide on how you’ll be perceived.

Somewhere else in the blogosphere, I’ve heard some interesting ruminations about what should and should not be driving forces behind why a company should undertake a trade show effort. One of these rules struck a nerve with me as pertaining to the present credit crisis and rampant recessionary fears.

Reason #3: To correct a misconception.

In a business environment where everyone thinks everyone is at risk of going totally Lehman, what a better way to cure that paranoia than through your exhibit booth at your next trade show. Of course, if you own an expensive custom trade show property, you might lack the flexibility to actually change your design to accomplish any particular change in directive. Hopefully 2006’s business plan will keep working for the next 2 years while you amortize your custom built booth. Even better, maybe your company’s just too big to fail.

Meanwhile, your competitor has a new look, is effectively launching their new product, adapting to the product life cycle of their existing product, and reinforcing the belief that they are constantly growing their market share. Oh, and surely this sort of thing never happens in industries other than ours.

One more thing: I’ve picked up on two ways in which companies have tried to combat wild speculations about their fiscal strength in moments of extreme doubt- Press releases and employment solicitations. If we’re offering jobs, and telling the press that things are GREAT despite headlines to the contrary, then everything’s supposedly “all good.” Apparently, people are starting to see through this sort of rubbish…

It’s September 2006. It’s hot, business is hopping and I’ve gotta get to McCormick Place  to deliver graphics and visit what we’ll call a “spicy” client. I look cute today, which makes me feel chipper…crisp, white, button-down shirt, chic black pants and high-heeled boots. I’m going to impress this client with my vast industry knowledge and top-notch customer service. I anticipate her spending a million dollars at the next trade show. It’s gonna be a good day. 

I pack my car with large boxes full of fabric graphics, paperwork and a steaming cup of coffee from 7-Eleven. An exhausting, two-hour drive from Catalyst Exhibits later, I’m swirling around the basement of Lakeside Center’s parking garage(instead of the North Hall, because traffic made me nervous so I pulled into the first Public Parking slot I could find). I’m not panicked because though it’s only my second time at this venue, I have plenty of time to navigate to the hall. I unload my boxes of graphics onto a hand truck (thanks creepy garage guy!), haul the drayage, electrical and Internet forms over my shoulder and make my way toward an exit. I soon find myself at the base of an escalator, leading to the Lakeside Center. Climbing aboard – cuteness intact – I realize that the boxes of graphics are slowly slipping from my arms and off the dolly. I try to reposition myself but the boxes are coated in Vaseline and cascade down the escalator. Hey, at least no one saw me (I think, as a bead of moisture forms above my brow) but as the thought forms, about 100 doctors pour out of a conference down the corridor. They all watch as I fumble around like a blind juggler, trying to salvage the boxes. I get to the top (humiliated, by the way, because my shirt got caught in the railing, so I look indecent), call the Account Exec for I&D and beg him to pick me up. I don’t know where I am in relation to the booth space, so it takes him 40 minutes to find me. When he does, I flop myself on the back of his cart and, sweating profusely now, drag the mangled boxes of graphics all the way to the North Hall. 

I get there, survey the area and am confident that – despite this morning’s inconveniences – the rest of the day will be swell. The booth looks lovely and the client’s no where to be found (in this case…that’s kind of a good thing). Out of nowhere, like a vulture to the carcass, the client barrels into me, screaming Spanish about missing graphics. “I have them,” I say. She storms off. Crisis averted. Sulking toward me, though, is the foreman…with eyes like someone killed his puppy. This man, who embodies lumber-jack masculinity in all it’s glory, is crying. Is he really crying? Bottom lip quivering, he mutters, “I can’t take this anymore.” 

Spicy McSpicerson has gotten to him. 

It was all down hill from the point. Mass chaos. The client screams until her nose bleeds, the foreman sobs, I’m so drenched in sweat that my hair looks like Benicio Del Toro’s, the booth “¡Es nada en absolute lo que ha supuesto ser!” and my boss (and HIS boss) are on the phone with a Spanish CFO about our pending lawsuit. 

These are trade shows in their rarest form. These are doppelgangers, of sorts…a parellel universe. Though I love the industry and – more importantly – Catalyst, I am exhausted. I wonder if Starbucks is hiring…

For those of you who don’t know Kevin - he is our Exhibit House Mascot - he helped me this weekend with the leaves, and we began our conversations about rakes and outdoor lawn equipment.

Well, after we got all done, we hit the internet and came across Orgill’s Dealer Market Trade Show.  What an interesting trade show this must be.  Anyone in the hardline industry that attended the Orgill Dealer Market Trade Show in the past, had rave reviews. 

Orgill’s Dealer Market Trade Show will be held in Orlando in February of 2008 - 2/21-23rd.  From Farm & Ranch, Workwear, Lawn & Garden and seasonal items.  The possibilities of meeting new vendors and learning from the latest and greatest new programs from Orgill are phenominal.  Some of the heavy hitters that attend are Black & Decker, Dewalt, Valspar and Stanley, just to name a few. 

No matter what it is you are trying to acheive, in any business, you can learn from so many sources.  Educate yourself from the industry proffessionals, and take away what works for you and design your business structure with a solid foundation.  

In the business of exhibiting, we take the key four elements we feel will bring you the most impact and present to you a custom exhibit rental solution.   If you are planning on exhibiting at the Orgill Dealer Market Trade Show, you want to make sure not only your product’s make a statement but your entire exhibit will draw in the attention and the sales you are hoping to acquire in this market arena, following some of the basic trade show tips you can increase your performance on the trade show floor.   I read that the orders written at the last trade show, was up 11% from the previous year.   Defining your marketing objectives in advance, can as well help drive up your return on investment, and you will be well ahead of the competition and well ahead of your goals.

Finally, STYLE is just what it sounds like; “what the exhibit looks like.” If the exhibit should look like a ski lodge, a sailboat, a doctor’s office, etc… then we make it so.  This is style.  Style is the last thing we look at before we design.  We can apply almost any style to any design.

Strategy Event Goals (From Client) - Determine Elements - Determine Priority - Determine Grammar - Determine Style = Exhibit Design

Between each and every process of the chain of events the best practice is review each process.

Wow..this is right up old Kevin’s alley, by accident we stumbled upon the Underwater Intervention 2008 website and the amazement in this technology really intriqued our little mississippi map.  Taking place in New Orleans, January 29-31st, at the Morial Convention Center. 

I honestly have to say, I never even realized there was such a convention.  Kevin got a bit of an education in welding when he investigated the FABTech trade show coming to McCormick Place later this year.  Can you imagine welding structures underwater?   This is the job of what they call a commercial diver, getting paid to work underwater.  (No Kevin - we are not increasing your exhibit house salary)

ROV’s = Remotely Operated Vehicles, are used for various tasks for diving contractors as well as some various programs that have gone on in the past.  EPA funded project for the environmental education, what a great opportunity for those wishing to be in this field. 

The conference will cover many topics, concrete rehabilitation, marine construction, workshops and discussions.  Commercial divers have to work in a variety of conditions, not only in water that is drinkable, but wastewater as well.