Swept Away

When you exhibit at international shows, you need to tackle a lengthy list of unique challenges, including everything from language barriers to cultural taboos. However, until one fateful show in Frankfurt, Germany, I never knew that securing booth cleaning also appears on that problematic list.

Working for exposition-management company Hall-Erickson Inc. in the early 1990s, I was in charge of managing a client’s large exhibit pavilion at the AutoMechanika show in Frankfurt. While I’d completed seemingly endless pre-show tasks, such as arranging shipments, reserving hotel rooms, and ordering in-booth refreshments, I somehow missed what turned out to be a critical item on my to-do list: ordering booth cleanup.

When I finally caught my oversight during setup three days before the show, I approached show management to ask if I could add the cleaning service at that time. Figuring that a little cleaning surely wouldn’t be that hard to arrange, I assumed the show-management rep was being overly cautious when he frowned and told me he’d try to track down some cleaners, but he couldn’t make any guarantees.

Thus, I kept working on the pavilion through the next two days and didn’t check on the cleaning again until the day before the show. That’s when the rep told me that there were only enough cleaning personnel for those who had met the cleaning-order deadline several weeks earlier. Since I’d missed the deadline, my dirty, debris-filled 4,800-square-foot pavilion and I were on our own.

Our hasty installation had left us with dirty carpets, endless debris, and a layer of dust covering almost everything in the pavilion. But minus a cleaning crew, supplies, and equipment, I somehow had to clean up our act before the show opened the next day.

My first thought was to simply buy some equipment and supplies and clean the booth myself. But since it was Sunday, there were no open stores nearby that carried cleaning supplies such as vacuums and brooms.

My next thought was to rent or borrow them, and the nearest place with this type of equipment was my hotel. Thus, I hurried back to the hotel and spoke to the front-desk personnel, who no doubt thought I was completely insane. Nevertheless, they instructed me to ask the housekeeping personnel directly.

So off I went in search of a housekeeper. When I finally tracked one down, our language barrier made it almost impossible for me to communicate my requests. However, after using some exaggerated sweeping gestures and pantomime, I finally got across to her that I wanted to borrow her cleaning equipment, and I soon found myself in possession of brooms, dust pans, and some cleaning spray and rags. And thanks to good old German engineering, these brooms with their wide, stiff bristles could easily clean my booth’s thin carpet tiles, which meant I didn’t have to track down a vacuum.

Since the housekeeper had finished her duties, she offered me use of the cleaning supplies for free, but grateful as I was, I still pressed about $25 in Deutsche marks into her hand. Then one of my staffers and I raced back to our rooms to change into some grubby clothes for the dirty job that lay ahead.

Thinking we were in the clear, we hit another hurdle when we tried to cram all of our gear into a taxi, as the long broom handles wouldn’t fit in the trunk or the back of the cab. Fortunately, the driver eventually took pity on us and drove us to the convention center with the broom handles sticking out of the taxi windows.

After three hours of sweeping, cleaning, and dusting, our booth was finally ready for the show to open the next day — and we were ready for a well-needed rest. So after a bit of cajoling, we convinced another cab driver to accommodate our brooms, and high-tailed it back to the hotel to return the items and catch some shuteye.

In the end, the booth looked flawless, so no harm was done, unless you count the pain in my arms from three hours of cleaning.

— Carol Fojtik, senior vice president, Hall-Erickson Inc., Westmont, IL

Look Ma, No Pants

For the 2001 TS² show in Anaheim, CA, I packed light. Since I’d only be spending three days at the show, I wore a casual shirt and shorts on the plane and brought merely one suit to wear while working my client’s booth, and an extra pair of khaki shorts for my down time. Little did I know then, but those khakis would become a critical part of my attire in the days to come.

As president of Laible Productions Inc., a trade show talent and writing firm in Chicago, I was running a game-show-like presentation in a client’s booth. Having flown in a few hours before I was due in the booth, I rushed up to my hotel room to change.

But when I arrived in my room and unzipped my garment bag, I discovered something was amiss. While one hanger held my suit jacket, the other hanger was empty. It seems I had packed lighter than I thought, as I had no pants to go with my suit jacket.

I quickly ran down to the hotel lobby to see if the gift shop had any pants. While I found a pair of black slacks, they certainly didn’t match my suit jacket; plus, at $200 they would have immediately eaten my entire per diem. So with minutes to go before the show opened, I had two choices: buy a pair of non-tailored, ill-matching slacks for around $200, or don my shorts and hit the show floor.

While neither choice seemed ideal, I got to thinking about the booth setup and the message the client was trying to deliver about its longevity and flexibility. Plus, for most of my presentation, I’d be sitting behind a podium. So I figured that given my client’s messages, my seated position, and the recent “Survivor” show phenomenon, maybe I could get away with wearing a suit coat and shirt up top with khaki shorts down below.

Once in the booth, I sat behind the waist-high desk as I engaged the crowd, and from the waist up, I looked all business. But eventually as I got up from the desk, attendees saw my laid-back look from the waist down. That’s when I explained that my attire symbolized the company’s flexibility. While on the top the company was a serious pro, behind the scenes it was also a survivor, one that wasn’t afraid to get its hands dirty to provide better service.

I felt more than a little silly, but my unusual strategy broke the ice with attendees. Maybe I should forget my pants more often. It’s a thought.

— Richard Laible, president, Laible Productions Inc., Winnetka, IL