Marshall Yard:

No trade show blog would be complete if we ignored a reality of our lives: Anything and everything we do is subject to the approval of those on high. Yes, show management, the fire marshall, and anyone else deemed “convention hall authorities” are essentially the deciders of our fate. As unfair as it may seem, that’s the industry we’re in, so we, exhibitors and exhibit providers alike, need to take great care whenever addressing concerns they may have.

Anyone have a story of how they gleaned a scornful eye from show management? Perhaps you didn’t get that variance that you expected? Or perhaps business as usual was put “on hold?” We’d love to hear your story, as we can all learn from one anothers’ mistakes. Some helpful wisdom from our more experienced account managers, however, may yield improved results for beginners-

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Thanks to Emma McDonald at frugalmarketing.com for that quote. Ours is a marketing medium that is construed as having a very short window of opportunity for sales. To earn an worthwhile ROI on tradeshow dollars can be a daunting task for marketing coordinators charged with organizing an exhibit booth. Ms. McDonald’s point, however, clarifies why that challenge seems so insurmountable: many view expo’s as a short-term project, with a show open and close occurring within a couple of days.

In reality, a trade show exhibit program spans, arguably by definition, over a course of multiple shows. In fact, the shows that you do not exhibit at play a role in the perceived success of your overall program. Are attendees ever wondering why you weren’t at the XYZ Show? The results from any individual exhibit booth are cumulative, in so much as you are building a presence over the course of many shows - not one. (more…)

Budget preservatives that will leave you saying “mmm-mmmmm”

Deadlines are important

Is Drayage Killing Tradeshows?

Make sure you don’t go to one of these tradeshows!

Saving $$$ on employee travel and meal expenses

A matter of much debate in the trade show industry boils down to the advantages of hanging signs versus maximum height exhibit structures. Does a sign hanging at 25 ft., or even higher, pose an advantage over a 20 ft. tall booth tower? This is certainly an integral decision to ‘get right’ when you’re planning a custom exhibit design. What’s your opinion?

I’ve always been a proponent of taller exhibit structures, without hanging signage. My reasons are two-fold: Hanging signs are painfully expensive to rig, while tall structures contribute to a more impactful tradeshow exhibit.

I’ve talked previously about how expensive rigging is - a reality faced by many exhibitors when they display at major convention halls [in forced-unionism states and municipalities]. That same investment can be put into a more dynamic, and taller, exhibit booth, and achieve the same goal. 20 ft. or higher booth designs demand attention in show halls when the most common exhibit height is found at 16 feet.

Do you think hanging signs are the way to go for an exhibitor? Do you prefer a tall exhibit structure instead? What about spinning signs? Weigh in!

As the Wall Street adage goes: “TheTrend is your Friend.”

In any industry, there are prominent trends in how business is conducted. Ours, the trade show/events industry, is no different. What are the present trends in the sub-category of Convention Hall Show Services?

The expenses faced by exhibitors go above and beyond the cost of their display booth, and the exhibit space, but can easily include 50% more in costs for Installation and Dismantle, A/V setup, electrical, and drayage. While these tasks are obviously a necessary component of our business, their staggaring growth has long puzzled exhibitors and exhibit houses alike. What trends have you seen in recent months?

Branding initiatives and product releases have lifespans. Most of us understand this aspect of a rapidly changing marketing environment. Regardless, tradeshow exhibit companies and their clients ruminate quite frequently about which graphics may or may not be reused at subsequent shows, and in later exhibit designs.

Saving graphic costs can substantially reduce the cost of an ongoing exhibit program, and allow an exhibitor to stretch the trade show dollar and achieve greater success with fewer resources. Greater success, however, demands that the exhibit draw hoards of enthusiastic attendees - something that a booth design repeated at countless venues would be hard pressed to accomplish. That’s where a thread from our “Frugal Exhibitor” blog post gets interesting…

Repeating graphics at every show will get boring. Unless architecture is innovated at every step, or unless there is some nuance in the message conveyed on the show floor, attendees will yawn and keep walking. Custom rental exhibit programs offer the flexibility needed in order to modify architecture while reusing graphics. Some hybrid booths (purchasing AND renting) may provide a similar level of pliancy. Purchased exhibit displays [typically] must be remodeled to suite the new design architecture- an often cost-prohibitive plan to revitalize trade show attendance. More often, purchased exhibits rely upon the printing of new graphics to revitalize an exhibits look (also expensive), even though this is certainly akin to putting a new sticker on an existing product.

While architecture can communicate volumes about a company and their message, nuance can come in many other forms. In the Frugal Exhibitor post, I mention the idea of supplanting product-specific graphics with A/V technology - LCDs or Plasma screens. Do you have some ideas on how companies can alter their message without going to the expense of printing new graphics?

These days it is scarce to encounter an exhibitor who does not want to save big money on their upcoming show. Nowadays, everyone is a frugal exhibitor. Marketing Impact is as important as ever, but saving money along the way is often a matter of diligence, not sacrifice. Let’s get the conversation started with a few cost saving ideas. This thread is one I plan on reincarnating week after week, as budget-stretching-ideas are a veritable “bottomless well” that, once flowing, may never cease. Today’s ideas:

Drayage - How many shipments MATTERS. If your exhibitor is sending 2 crates to a show (e.g. - for a 20×20 exhibit), and you expect to send a 125 lb. box full of giveaways for the show, SEND THEM TO YOUR EXHIBITOR. By bundling everything together in the 2 crates, you’ll save in the form of a leaner drayage line-item.

A/V - Ever evaluated your graphics costs in relation to A/V costs? It goes like this: How many graphic stills can you show in the course of a slideshow? If your 42″ screen takes up a little more than 2 square feet, but 20 different screen shots effectively communicate your message, then that screen is delivering 40 square feet of graphics. Compare that with what you’re paying for graphics, and you might discover that A/V is often the best and cheapest method for articulating more specified messages or information. This allows the booth to be a pure-bred machine for branding, and those graphics can be reused at subsequent shows- saving you even more money.

Riggers … It’s a rigged game. Hanging signs can be enticing - the idea that a sign 30′ in the air will draw attendees to your remote booth location. Often, however, the attraction is dulled by the overpopulation of exhibit hall airspace. More to the point, however, is the exorbident expense that riggers represent. Often a fairly inexpensive hanging sign will cost $5-$7,000 to hang. Riggers are also called in to do any work that needs to be done above 16-20′ in the exhibit hall. Pay attention to make sure that your design does not call for assembly of items in this height range. If the assembly can be done at ground level, then you’ll avoid the riggers hefty fee when the structure is at it’s full height.

I’d love to hear some thrifty ideas from readers - what’s worked for you in the past? Any ideas you can contribute will help us all!

-Emily Dickinson

Those who go to concerts, use public transportation and eat in crowded restaurants are forgoing prime marketing opportunities for fear of catching the….dum dum dum…SWINE FLU.

Advertising is more important now than ever. We can’t let the media induce such panic that we don’t think clearly. Regress to 1999: did all the banks implode? Did we run out of water and electricity? Not quite. Did the much-dreaded Avian Flu wipe out most of the population? Nope. And the two that did - 1347’s Bubonic Plague and the 1918 Flu Pandemic occurred far before the advent of antibacterial cleansers, Thermaflu, HMOs and the Flu Vaccine.

Could the Swine Flu be the end of us all? Sure it could. Is it likely to? No. Wash your hands, get your shots, eat an apple a day and…until we have all the facts to determine a logical, progressive course of action…don’t cancel your trade shows.

My favorite conversations in the exhibit industry revolve around ancient, nay, prehistoric exhibits: The story of a recent booth, constructed in Toronto, that dated from the 1960’s. An exhibitor who purchased a booth 3 years ago and lamented that they already needed a new booth (but their acquisitions have always been depreciated over 10 year periods!). A 5 year old exhibit - laminate-panelled, extraordinarily heavy and costly to store - had chips, cracks or scratches, on every single panel. Corporate would not refurbish or repair the booth. They needed to wait for it to fully depreciate.

These stories litter the exhibit industry, and become readily apparent when you visit a show. This is oftentimes a delicate prospect to contact - there is a great deal of pain in their exhibiting experience. BUT there is also an obvious inflexibility to change at either the coordinator’s level, or from on-high. The concept of rental ought to be a refreshing concept to these trade show coordinators. Instead, “business as usual” reigns supreme, though it might continue to waste valuable company dollars.

Trade shows are quite expensive to exhibit at - sans exhibit costs (the real estate, employee travel and accommodations - quite an investment). It should be painfully obvious that a display which exudes a negative image to prospective and existing clients, is costing more money in the form of opportunity costs.

I like to think of Opportunity Costs as pesky little expenses which become apparant only after the game has already been lost. If it weren’t for them, I’d stick with that 1960’s exhibit. She’s got a few more years of marketing excellence left in ‘er, right?

Marketing departments spend a good bulk of their budget on trade shows. Few other line items demand such a great investment. While the logistical concerns in the course of organizing a successful exhibit program are immense, there’s an oft-ignored “elephant in the room” of every trade show coordinator, or marketing manager.

The marketing department is primarily concerned with trade show logistics, instead of MARKETING IMPACT (the aforementioned elephant).

Suppose your company were investing heavily in a direct mail campaign. Would you obsess with how the direct mail vendor planned to print the postcards? Perhaps you would ruminate incessantly about how the addresses were collated?

Ok, so of course you wouldn’t worry about those things. You’d probably focus on the message of the mail itself, how your company is perceived by the recipients, and the call to action. Marketing strategy’s the name of the game, correct?

WHY ISN’T THAT HAPPENING FOR YOUR TRADE SHOW EXHIBIT?

For being the largest expenditure in the marketing budget, it seems that the only strategy involved in planning trade shows is:

1.       Pick a booth design that you like,

and

2.       Figure out how the logistics and expenses will mesh with reality [your marketing budget and exhibition schedule]

Marketing strategy should drive every “booth decision,” period. It shouldn’t just be a piecemeal graphics change, but rather an honest evaluation of what your booth communicates about your company, your product, and your positioning amidst your competitors. Your display should be fine tuned based on an expo’s attendees and competing exhibitors. So let’s just take a little vacation from logistics while we straighten this all out…

Ever had your unique product stolen? Technology, even with the aid of patent attorneys and copyright law by your side, is, at best, fleeting in today’s hyper-competitive economy. How long do you expect your offering will remain unique? How long before someone steals your idea, or worse, IMPROVES IT!

At our tradeshow exhibit house, we see this at play every day. Not only has our construction method, 6”x6” aluminum “innerspace” beams utilizing fabric graphics, been stolen by our fiercest competitors, but we face the threat of “design theft” in nearly every competitive situation. If a client likes our product, but wants to see if someone else can do it for less money, they trot our design to other vendors until someone says ”yes, we can do that, and we can rent it for a tad less $$$!”

Loyalty is well nigh gone, right? And imagine how frustrating it is for our designers who see their custom booths at an expo, often butchered by producers lacking know-how with certain challenging architectural features.

Most of our clients respect the innovations our designers craft for their unique situation, and they hate to perpetuate a reality that they face as well. One such client told me about his horrendous experiences in his industry: Copycats have stolen a technology that his grandfather created more than 80 years ago - and he constantly strives to stay one step ahead of their grasp.

Like that client, we (our design team members, really) constantly forge onwards-innovating at every turn. Collecting ideas from an array of inspirational avenues, they work feverishly to stay at the edge of display marketing and trade show exhibit designs. With an assortment of new developments rolling-out into custom designs for this FY09Q2, I’m constantly amazed with how they adapt and evolve to fit our client’s needs.

You’re expecting an excruciating analysis of why you should rent or buy your next custom exhibit booth, aren’t you?

Well, you’re not going to find it in this trade show blog post.

In fact, I constantly hear from exhibitors who tell me they want to rent or buy an exhibit, and it needs to do X, Y, and Z. I’m willing to sell them, or rent them, an exhibit that meets those needs. No problem, you’re the boss, I might say. But like Columbo walking away from a pleasant discussion with a suspect, I might just remember one more question…

Have you ever thought about doing both? Rental AND Purchase?

We call it “Hybrid,” which combines the two options. It’s quite frequently the absolute best choice for exhibitors who want some custom components, and who plan to do a similar display at subsequent shows. These folks are keenly aware that doing the same booth at every tradeshow just doesn’t make much marketing sense.

Purchase decisions are often driven by the mythology that one can only get an exceptional custom booth by purchasing. Still others buy their exhibit because they seem to apply home or car ownership v. leasing arguments to the trade show world. Who knew that the marketing department would submit to an argument rooted in a static product message and costly “cost of ownership” costs. Sound costly?

So open your eyes to hybrid. If the concept is new to you, then maybe it ought to become more familiar. Just renting or purchasing could be a mistake!

If you’re anything like me, you find the recent rumblings about executive bonuses, Gulfstream jets, and lavish corporate retreats quite unsettling. In fact, I sometimes find myself getting worked into a “torches and pitchforks” proletariat lather. But then I start to think…

While I can’t really comment upon executive bonuses, I would like to opine about corporate travel, and some of the corporate perks we’re so resentful of.

Companies have begun to restrict the travel of their executives and are curtailing corporate training, seminars, and expos (read: Trade Shows) that might be perceived as excessive or indulgent. As such, the travel and tourism industry’s woes have been doubled in the already recessionary business environment.

What is wrong with ensuring a face-to-face meeting with an important client - even if it will entail a significant investment? Or viewing a trade show exhibit display prior to purchasing a product costing hundreds of thousands? What is wrong with investing in the expertise of your workforce by sending valued employees to seminars, symposiums, or corporate training, even if it’s 1,000 miles away? While most of these employees long ago lost their zeal for traveling on business, their trips cost significant corporate dollars. Those costs are paid to hard working individuals in the tourism and travel industry - everyday these people vye for opportunities to make those trips as comfortable and productive as possible for their customers. The interdependence of trade shows, travel, and tourism industries is great. There are a myriad of talents required for a single custom exhibition booth -from it’s design, to its construction, to its installation on the convention hall floor (and all of the tasks in-between). This represents an underrecognized, and underappreciated engine of employment.

Is there anything wrong with that? Are the torches and pitchforks really needed? Unless we wish to chastize the hard working service providers in these industries, we ought to support corporate travel, perks, and even a healthy dose of “excess!”

Some marketing departments are so wedded to their exhibit house that they rarely seek competitive bids on projects. Maybe twice per decade [MAYBE]. Even then, they have every intention of using their existing vendor NO MATTER WHAT the competition has to offer:

“Well, we really liked your design. We think your offering is innovative, and can take our trade show results to a higher level. Your price was great, too. But we feel really comfortable working with our existing exhibit house. We really appreciate the exorbitant amount of work you’ve done for the past three months. Let’s stay in touch?”

One of our junior Account Executives heard this very line (OK, I’ve embellished a bit) a couple of weeks ago. We had to buy her a new handset for her phone after she broke it in a frenzied hang-up mishap. You probably get the picture?

When it comes to working with vendors, loyalty is highly important. Blind allegiance in spite of your company’s interests is another thing. If your exhibit house is not offering you a drastic increase in value for your marketing dollar, then they’re likely allied with their own best interests at total odds with your own. With marketing budgets getting haircuts, who can afford to ignore this sort of “business as usual” attitude?

Remember: the guy with the gun (customer) is shooting at the home-wrecker (competition). Not at you! Worst case scenario they will have to do some deep discounting to get this year’s business - Is that such a bad thing?

I enjoy things that are predictable, reliable, and proven. But I CAN recognize when things have outlived their useful life - met their expiration date - SPOILED. I know a foul stench when I smell one.

The “traditionalists” of the trade show world are either victims or perpetrators. Which are you? And what are the most egregious aspects of “traditional” trade show exhibit behaviors?

Back-End costs (stealth profits!):

 - Exhibit providers will sell a booth at what may seem like a reasonable price, and heap on added profits from unexpectedly exorbitant handling, repair, and refurbishment costs. While some of this “smoke and mirror” treatment can be flushed out prior to a contract being executed for purchase, some of it evolves out of the dependency that an exhibitor develops with the contracted exhibit house.

Non-Impact costs (it’s not marketing, but it’s in our budget):

 - As an integral and MASSIVE aspect of your marketing spending, it would be great if you could be spending money on MARKETING. Instead, traditional exhibit houses have tied up your marketing budget in storage, inspections, crates, and the aforementioned handling and repairs. Golly, nothing projects the company image more than a finely built CRATE. I can assure you, as a member of the spendthrift American public, I would buy more of your product if only you spent more money storing your aging, worn-out trade show exhibit.

Spending like you can predict the future:

 - 2009 is proving to be a terrible time to predict what your company’s trade show itinerary might be for the next 24 months. While the next year’s list of shows might appear to be set in stone (booth spaces reserved, etc), we just recently emerged from a moment in economic time when banks were weary of lending to institutions OVERNIGHT. You’re making educated guesses that span years into the future? Nostradamus meets Trade Show Coordinator - I AM IMPRESSED.

Tradition is all well and good, but is the decrepit model for trade show exhibit houses becoming antiquated and primordial? Is your boss looking over your shoulder to determine whether you’re coordinating an absurdly archaic trade show exhibit? Tradition might be fine when you’re deciding where to go out to dinner on that special occasion, but it downright STINKS when it comes to trade shows.

While the vast majority of Marshall-Yard.com readers look to us for advice on how to live a more virtuous lifestyle, hints on climbing the corporate ladder, and marital dispute resolutions, a precious few have higher expectations for the site and its content. Some readers expect unbelievably objective trade show exhibit information (it’s so unbiased I want to SCREAM!!!). Some come here for the pretty pictures. Some, after years decades of fervent reading, look to us for something more - they are left yearning even after their daily* fix of exhibit booth goodness.

Some Marshall-Yard.com readers expect us to predict the future. This post is for you.

On December 9th, 2008, I made a bold, unprecedented prediction that one of the “Great Trade Shows for 2009” would include the “Newspaper & Print Journalists Expo.” The post was written in soggy sarcasm (dripping with…). As of today, February 27th, 2009, IT has come to pass!

Headline: “Newspaper convention canceled amid industry woes“ [sic]

For those of you who have been yearning for bold predictions of future events, keep reading. We will continue to satiate the intellectual and emotional appetites of the hopeless, confused masses - but you can now count on us to predict any, and all, future events of even the slightest significance.

Go figure: a blog downplaying the importance of a negative event for print media. Hmmmmm…

*-marshall-yard.com shall not be held responsible for the “daily-ness” or objectiveness of blog postings.

It is said that what separates those who are good from those who are great is that great talents make their jobs look easy. Most of us remember how effortless Michael Jordan made the game of basketball look- tongue wagging and a smile on his face, he would sink fade away jump shots, or leap over the likes of Patrick Ewing or Charles Barkley in the final moments of regulation. For a moment we all felt like it was something we could do - just another day at the office for him, after all.

The “best of the best” of nearly every field can be attributed this trait. The best doctor makes a medical procedure simple and clear to a layperson; the best mechanic will explain why your car makes that noise, and leaves you at ease with his resolution; the best administrative assistant will keep the entire universe organized and make it seem like that’s how things were before their diligence took root. Yet all of these professionals take immense care and effort in their craft. It ISN’T easy, but they make it appear so.

With trade shows, I think the account manager shoulders a burden that is most relevant to this “rule” of greatness. A great account manager will guide an exhibitor from the execution of the contract through to the completion of the show, and they’ll do it with the grace that gives exhibitors confidence, comfort, and most importantly: Success. Behind the scenes, however, the account manager wears many hats. They are oft perceived as the thorn in a contractor’s side, and they keep hawkish attention on the real-time execution of even the most minute tasks. They represent both the interests of their exhibit company and the exhibitor client, and are highly responsible for the nurturing of long-lasting relationships with third party vendors (those very same aforementioned contractors). These relationships alone are key to a consistently positive experience for exhibiting companies.

Account managers are essentially the glue that holds together a project that is often 6-9 months in the making - and the best make that glue smell good, hold fast, and remain strong. Mmmmmm. Glue.

A frequent objection to renting exhibit booths is that they are too expensive - purchasing is supposedly less expensive in the long run, depending on how many shows an exhibitor goes to. And surely that’s sometimes true - we have studied the subject at length. Primarily, however, the opinion is based on comparing apples and oranges. An “erector set” style of exhibit booth, when purchased, will cost less than our custom designed rental exhibits. The difference is not in purchase versus rental, the difference is in VALUE. In the realm of trade show marketing, value is derived from marketing impact - how effectively you are at reaching your trade show objectives. If the erector set booth is inferior in accomplishing those objectives, then you’ll get more value from the custom designed and specially fabricated booth. In order to say rental is more expensive than purchase, or visa versa, you’ll need to compare apples to apples. That’s quite difficult to do in this business, but supposing we can, let’s start by introducing the items purchasers tend to underestimate:

-Storage
-Crates
-Inspection/Handling
-Damages / Repairs
-Redesign/Reconfigure
-Refurbishing

We’ve done a study of the subject in our corporate white papers, here, and in most cases, it becomes a break even [the document holds a vast number of assumptions, intentionally biased IN FAVOR OF purchase, just to prove the point of rental's economy]. Some scenarios reflect a slight advantage for rental, some reflect an advantage of combining rental and purchase, and some scenarios reflect an advantage for purchase.

 Typically, purchase programs that look cost effective on paper have a major hazard: overlapping shows. If you go to 10 or 15 shows each year, the ship/setup/show/dismantle/ship/inspect/repair/ship schedules overlap at some point. This neccessitates having at least two booths, and negating the cost advantage.

Let’s suppose, however, that purchase is always more cost effective. Surely if you only do one show each year, you would have to use the same booth, with the same graphics, for years on end, in order to save over rental. Why your company would bother exhibiting at all in that scenario escapes me (but we see it all the time), but yes you’ll be saving money. Instead of argueing that rental gives you greater flexibility, I’d like to offer an often neglected reason:

Because the exhibit booth is only a small aspect of your exhibit program - but it’s the one that sets you apart from your competition!

The exhibit booth itself construes roughly one third of the budget that a company might set for a given trade show. The show services are more and more often responsible for another third, and the cost of your booth space may, depending on the venue, equate to the remaining third. If you include the travel and lodging expenses of your sales and marketing people that are attending the show, and any technicians to install software or program a machine being showcased, the proportion of your trade show budget that the exhibit actually occupies shrinks even further.

Supposing that your exhibit booth is 1/4th of your total costs, why are you jeopardizing or sacrificing the marketing impact of your entire trade show endeavor over a slight projected advantage!?!?! Seems like a bad idea to this trade show guy. Give every show your best effort - RENT!

Is your company planning to purchase a new exhibit booth sometime in 2009 or 2010? The more and more I speak with trade show coordinators and marketing guru’s who have been charged with this responsibility, the more resolute I am as an ALL-OUT ADVOCATE for renting exhibit booths. Some companies go to 20 shows a year, some 12, some 5, and others 1 or 2. Heck, if you’re going to NPE this year, you might even go to a show once every 3 years! The rationale for each trade show exhibit program decision may be different, but here are a few “variations.”

There is a sort of “conventional wisdom” that I often hear:
 

1. We do the same thing at every show.
2. If you saw our booth, you would understand!(these exhibit are just TOO AWSOME for me to grasp, apparently)
3. Renting is just too expensive. (These conversations typically give me this eery feeling that I must be unknowingly scamming all of my faithful clients that would excitedly volunteer as references. Those “suckers.”)

1. My brain hurts! Since when was marketing about being predictably boring at every opportunity, with tens or hundreds of thousands of marketing dollars invested to achieve mediocrity? Find a better excuse please!
2. Custom rental with some custom built components can achieve unbelievable results, just as a custom purchase exhibit can. The rental approach will likely be lighter and allow you to do another creative and original exhibit at your next show - attendees will wonder just what you will come up with next!
3. Cost is a factor of quality or extravagence, not rental or purchase. The market for trade show exhibits is very efficient and rental and purchase prices are not grossly disproportionate from one another.

As I mentioned earlier - I am not quick to back off of my convictions that renting is just flat-out smarter. Display booths are not meant to be stale marketing pieces that you begrudgingly pull off of the shelf for your next show. They should not embarass you with outdated styling or graphics, poor refurbishing work, or damaged exhibit pieces.

Part 1 of 3 means I have more to say on this topic… Still think it makes sense to buy your exhibit booth? Please let me know why!

I’ve blogged ad nauseam regarding the effect that union-controlled show services has upon our industry - high prices that fly in the face of underlying costs and economic principles. I am fairly certain that my griping is exactly that - griping about a reality that will not change anytime soon. On that note, will it be getting worse soon?

That question struck me when I noted that the new executive administration ushered in a set of executive orders supporting/strengthening unions in America. The executive orders are aimed at hindering the efforts of non-unionized businesses trying to resist unionization of their labor force. Now when a business is working under federal contract they are no longer required to post a notice informing employees that they may opt-out of financially supporting a union; they will not be reimbursed for expenses associated with dissuading employees from unionizing; and they must offer new jobs to existing employees first.

I don’t proclaim to understand the finer points of how these orders affect practices currently in place for employers. I have gleaned that this clearly does not apply to every employer - just those working under federal contracts. Convention centers like McCormick Place in Chicago are actually funded and owned by the municipalities or states - is that outside of the grasp of the executive order? Is that an extension of executive orders or legislation yet to come?

In any business it’s important to keep ears open for lawmaker actions with effects on the economic environment. In this case, it may appear that my “sounding the alarm” about these orders is a bit of a stretch - but I think this is indirect linkage that will lead us to yet higher costs for show services. Am I sounding off prematurely? Will this have zero effect and I’m just paranoid?

How about a $800,000,000,000 stimulus package invested solely in trade show exhibit spending? Anyone in favor of that? Call your congressmen NOW!

I don’t know about the rest of you, but it’s friday, and I’ve been talking non-stop about trade shows, exhibit booths, display marketing in a recession, and everything else you could get engrossed in on a trade show blog of whatever stripe. Just to show that we’re different from all of those other exhibit company bozo’s, we’re going to abandon our regularly scheduled programming and cover something completely different:

Eyeglasses from the future!

Everyone remembers “that guy” who used to work at your place of business - he wore a lot of cologne, he hit on anyone who wore tight jeans (guys can wear tight jeans, too), he complimented the new girl’s “fake ones,” and he wore eyeglasses from the future. We’ll always remember “that guy,” and this post is for you!

We’ll return to our regularly scheduled programming on Monday. My apologies for the severe detour.