Tales From The Road

I was going to use our 20'x20' island booth with a 16' tower at a show in Los Angeles. It was the second time I had used the booth, and when I sent in the electrical layout, I didn't specify which way the tower should face. When I arrived for install, the electricians had already been there, the carpet was laid and the first layer of booth had been built.

It was then that I realized with horror that our booth was facing the wrong way! We were already near the faraway end of the aisle, and now our logo on the tower would be almost facing the wall where very little traffic would come. It was too late, and much too expensive, to make any changes, so I had to grin and bear it while thinking of some way to explain the oversight to my management.

– Rosheen Golden, Consultant

A lesson I learned was when to say goodnight. I would be up early each day for our pre-show meetings and the last to leave the hospitality suite, usually in the wee hours of the morning. These long days took their toll on me and I was frequently ill or exhausted after each show and would miss several days of work. I proposed to my boss that I should be able to leave the suite at a reasonable hour and leave the senior person on-site in charge of the suite to close up, so that I could get some sleep.

He agreed and we tried it at our next show. The very first night, around 11 p.m., I walked around the room and said good night to the sales guys and our guests and let them know who was in charge for the remainder of the night.

The next morning, my guys were all smiles. When I asked them what time they finally left, they explained that, after I left, everyone started filing out and they closed at 11:30. After that, it was a rule to have me say good night at 11 and the suite would close shortly after. Seems the sales guys were also exhausted and didn't want to be there to all hours either, but had never spoken up.

Nearly 20 years later, I continue to work with the hotel or facility for our hospitality events and we usually indicate a start and end time on our invitations. At the very least, the team knows what time I will be saying "Good night!"

– Anne Barron, President, ABComm

I was with RadioShack at the time, back in the days when RadioShack manufactured and sold Tandy computers. I was exhibits manager for the education division, and our focus was selling to the school market. We were exhibiting at the American Assn. of School Administrators annual conference at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. This is the annual school superintendents meeting and we had an elaborate setup of networked computers to show the attendees how a networked computer lab could augment their instructional program.

Computers were still a novelty to many of these administrators, and as much as we wanted them to learn about networking and instructional software, they were mainly interested in the novelty of using a mouse and playing solitaire! At least the booth had some traffic in it, even if it was customers taking advantage of our chairs to take a break and play a little solitaire. One lesson learned that weekend was that school administrators didn't really want a hands-on lab experience, and we could save the expense of big booth space and shipping a lot of hardware in the future.

– Jamie Alexander, Exhibit and events manager, Sunburst Technology

A vanload of exhibits was shipped from New York to Las Vegas and caught fire (somewhere) in the Midwest. When I got the call from the van management during setup I learned the agency involved was on its way to salvage the exhibit. I said, "Stop! That money is gone. Let the van and exhibit burn."

Where we needed to direct our attention was to find a rental exhibit, or the closest other unscheduled exhibit materials, that could be rushed to the site to make the show. Another exhibit for a different market was located. With the change of a few industry-related graphics on-site and working around the clock, the show went on.

The damaged exhibit was cannibalized eight months later and referred to the insurance brokers to settle.

– Ron Hardaway, Retired corporate exhibit manager, AT&T