Exhibitors Weigh the Best and Worst

Staff -- Tradeshow Week, 4/24/2006

Transportation is a major fact of life — and challenge — for exhibitors, taking up much time, money and effort. Contributing Editor Gary Tufel asked exhibitors about their favorite, and least favorite, convention centers to ship exhibits in and out of.

Question: What are the best and worst convention centers from a shipping perspective?

"Javits is the worst. Trucks get ticketed waiting, and that makes my price go up. Las Vegas is the best. They are organized, and the system makes everything run smoothly."

Lynne Parry, Tradeshow manager, Apple Rubber Products

"My fave is the old Orange County CC West in Orlando. It has acres of dock space and usually plenty of forklifts. My least fave is the Las Vegas CC, South Hall in particular. No loading docks, period. It's all done with ramps. Some really large shipping containers are not suited for ramp unload or load. Just think — this is a really, really new hall. What were they thinking?"

Arthur Veale, Tradeshow and exhibits manager, XN Technologies

"The best are all the second-tier-and-below cities, as they don't have marshaling yards which add time and cost to all shipments. Drivers charge for wait time, and marshaling yards add to this. The worst is Moscone Center in San Francisco, which has underground docks, nasty traffic and FedEx regularly refuses to pick up small packages there due to traffic. The worst non-convention center is Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in Washington, D.C. It has an underground dock, single lane in and out and terrible traffic."

Bob Thomas, Founder and president, Exhibit and Event Management

"We have the least amount of trouble at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, the Dallas Convention Center and the Portland (Ore.) Convention Center."

Pat Snyder, Tradeshow coordinator, Boyd Coffee

"The worst is McCormick (Place) in Chicago. The best is Orlando."

Deb Lang, Corporate event manager, Wells' Dairy