Outlaw Service Providers Going Against the Grain

From housing to handling freight, tradeshow exhibitors have plenty of options when it comes to selecting service providers. And lots of those service providers advertise. However, occasionally there are questions concerning how ethical some tactics they use to drum up business have become.

Perhaps most annoying are companies that market their services to exhibitors as though they are official service providers to participants in a particular show when in fact they are not. Show organizers then receive complaints from exhibitors who cannot decipher which service provider they have already agreed to use as part of their package deal and which is masquerading as the official company. Some view this as simply a case of clever entrepreneurs looking for new business, others as a costly deception.

"It confuses the exhibitor more than anything else," said John Schoener, national tradeshow manager at Roadway Express. He explained that most often, in the case of transportation carriers, post-show arrangements are made before the exhibitor even sets foot in the convention center. However, the service has not yet been paid for, and the exhibitor on the show floor is typically not the person in charge of making freight arrangements. The exhibitor may not be aware of who the service provider is and, in his or her haste to leave the show, may agree to have freight transported via a competing carrier.

This results in chaos at the loading dock when the two carriers — the one with the pre-arranged contract and the new provider that was signed on by the unsuspecting exhibitor at the show — arrive to move out the freight. By this time, Schoener said, the exhibitor is often already on a plane headed home, and the general contractor is left to figure out which carrier has jurisdiction over the freight.

"Registering customers is everyday business but, if you go under the guise of being the preferred service provider, I think that is wrong," Schoener said. "Putting on that impression, that's not right."

"I think show organizers need to be talking with exhibitors about who are good freight carriers and let it go from there," said Michael D. Lynn, director of marketing communications, exhibitions, events and protocol business development for L3 Communications, noting that his group never uses the carriers selected by show organizers.

Freight carriers, while the most obvious service necessary as a tradeshow winds down, are not the only companies exhibitors complain about. Advertisements via fax and e-mail that are deceivingly labeled can infuriate busy exhibitors. "I think it's a pain," said Arthur Veale, the tradeshow manager for XN Technologies. He recently opened an e-mail marked "government video information," believing it would be important details regarding the upcoming Government Video Technology Expo. Instead, it was an advertisement for exhibit booths. "I don't have time for a sales pitch," Veale complained.

Frequently, he receives faxes from housing and booth vendors trying to hock their wares, sometimes noting deep in the text that they are not affiliated with the show, but mostly leaving it ambiguous. As a board member of the Trade Show Exhibitors Assn., he believes it is a problem worth discussing. "Everyone needs to make a living, but they don't need to misrepresent themselves," Veale said.