Weekend Break

No trade show manager likes to get that call saying there is trouble with the booth. But getting that call at 5 p.m. on Friday makes it even worse. Suddenly, you’re faced with a long work-filled weekend trying to fix a disaster while many vendors are closed or lightly staffed.

That’s the bleak future I faced when I took a late-afternoon call on the Friday before Clean ’07 in Las Vegas. My staff had arrived in Sin City to oversee setup of our 20-by-30-foot booth for our biggest show of the year in the textile-care industry, and when one of them phoned me back in the office, the news wasn’t good. In fact, it was disastrous.

“The panels are broken!” screeched my staffer. Our booth signage mainly comprised 33 acrylic panels ranging from 2-by-8 feet to 4-by-8 feet. On the panels were text and images of our two latest products, which were debuting at the show. Thus, “the panels are broken,” was enough to send me into a tizzy.

But rather than panic, I tried to assess the situation first. After a couple more calls, my colleagues in Las Vegas explained that the crate designed specifically for the acrylic panels had been run through along one end — seemingly by a forklift — and three panels were damaged, one completely smashed. That was the good news. The bad news was that the smashed panel was one of a three-panel set of text and graphics for our new Tuff Tag product.

I felt like I was at a funeral service, and the dearly departed included my weekend, my crate and exhibit graphics, our success at the Clean ‘07 show, and the launch of my company’s new Tuff Tag product. With the show opening on Monday and visions of an emergency flight to Las Vegas swirling in my head, I knew even if I thought of a solution, there was no guarantee I’d find the help I needed to fix the problem before the show opened.

With my weekend looking bleak, I called my in-house designer to see if she had any ideas since she’d designed the booth in the first place. Her solution was to have a banner made to replace not only the broken panel, but the whole set of them for the Tuff Tag display, since the signage would look better using just one material rather than a mix of the two.

Acting on her advice, I called Britten Media, which had fabricated the acrylic panels. As luck would have it, workers were still in the office and willing to do an emergency job for us at 5:30 p.m. Britten still had all the graphics, colors, and text we needed, so as it turned out, the job was rather simple. They finished by 7 p.m., and were able to make the last FedEx shipment of the day at 7:20 p.m.

The new banner made it to my colleagues in Las Vegas on Saturday morning, and the whole booth was ready to go when the show opened on Monday morning.

Though the banner did not look quite as good as the original acrylic panels would have, no one seemed to notice, and the show was a success for the company and our new product. Best of all, I didn’t need to board a plane or spend Saturday and Sunday making frantic phone calls. My weekend was saved, and thankfully, so was my exhibit.

— Kristine Shreve, director of marketing, Ensign Emblem Ltd., Traverse City, MI


Linens and Things

Compared to planning a trade show exhibit, throwing a beach party, sounds like, well, a party. Rather than dealing with drayage, transportation, and union workers, you’re tasked with the sand, the surf, and the balmy breeze off the ocean. But unlike the dead calm inside the convention center, that lovely beach breeze can turn into a wicked wind, whipping your best-laid plans across the dunes.

Wary of such a catastrophe, I took care in planning an evening beach party in Cabo san Lucas. The event was meant to be a festive, casual party, so each table would include everything from squirt guns and yo-yos to flags and glow-in-the-dark items. Covering each table would be a spandex tablecloth designed to hold tight no matter how blustery the night might become.

Prior to the event, I purchased all of the items from my U.S. supplier and shipped them to Cabo. The linens were sent from our vendor, through a U.S. customs broker, and then to a Mexican broker. Two days before the party, however, while already in Cabo setting up other events, I received a call from the Mexican broker, who said my 75 wind-ready tablecloths would not clear customs because they contained an organic material that had been deemed a bio-threat.

I called my stateside broker to find out what this bio-threat could be, and to see if we could just rush a new set of less-threatening linens to the broker in Mexico. The answer: If I absolutely needed linens, I had to find another solution, preferably via a supplier in Mexico, because getting anything through customs this late in the game would require a minor miracle.

I began to feel the waves of despair crashing around me, as my first-class beach party started to look washed up.

Without a linen supplier I could trust in Cabo, I decided to do what all tourists do — shop the tourist traps.

My staff and I hit the local tourist market where they sell souvenirs, swimsuits, and other necessities for the beach-going Norte Americanos. Scouring the shops, we eventually found gigantic, two-person beach towels, each large enough to nearly cover one of the beach tables, and heavy enough that only a muy grande breeze was likely to make it flutter away. If we placed typical white linens under the towels, we’d sufficiently cover the tables and still have a festive, wind-resistant, solution.

At the first shop, we found 10 such towels — nowhere near the 75 we needed. Thus, we canvassed the rest of the market, where word of our search had apparently spread, as we noticed that the longer we searched, the pricier the towels got, rising from $15 to $20 each. Nevertheless, we emptied the market of the towels, eventually securing the 75 we needed.

On the day of the beach party, we covered each table in white linens we ordered from the hotel and draped a festive beach towel on top. Then, we attached metal table clips for extra security and added the place settings and party favors.

In the end, guests enjoyed the towels so much that they asked if they could take them home with them as well. Our response: Si, naturally.

— Deidre Everdij, director of business theater, ME Productions, Hallandale, FL