Voice of a Veteran: Sal Cavallaro

Michael Hart -- Tradeshow Week, 3/19/2007

It is constantly repeated that very few people who find a career in the tradeshow business go out looking for one. By the same token, there are plenty of stories about the exhibitor who became a show manager, or the show manager who became a service contractor, or the service contractor who became a CVB executive, or the ... You get the idea.

That's why Sal Cavallaro is a rarity. The former Trade Show Exhibitors Assn. chairman and longtime board member started out as an exhibitor — in 1971 for Valiant Instructional Materials Corp. in Hackensack, N.J. ("I don't even know if the company still exists," Cavallaro said.) — and stayed an exhibitor, right through to his Dec. 31 retirement from his job as manager of marketing support for United Technologies Corp., where he spent more than two decades.

You could even argue that he's still an exhibitor, working several days a week as a consultant with his United Technologies successor, Mark Hepworth.

If anyone can make the case that exhibit managers can and should do their best to connect with one another, it's Cavallaro. He did just that in a recent discussion with Tradeshow Week Editor in Chief Michael Hart.

Question: Do you remember your first tradeshow?

Answer: It was the Pittsburgh Teachers Convention, in 1971. There used to be a cardboard booth called Disposabooth. It was a kind of accordion cardboard. We bought this thing, got a bunch of audiovisual equipment out of the warehouse and threw it in the back of a station wagon. Another fellow and I drove to Pittsburgh, unloaded, set it up, worked it, tore it down and drove back. That was my first tradeshow.

Q: Anything about exhibiting changed since then?

A: A great deal. In the early days, it was a bonus to the salesman to go to Las Vegas or Chicago and go out, have a good time and get drunk, and entertain all the customers and go to "you-know-what" bars.

There's no question that today there is a different attitude: more focus, more understanding that there is business to be done. It's no longer a reward for being a great salesman.

The other thing is the exhibitry itself. The exhibit structures were a lot more customized. There wasn't the engineering that goes into all the various systems that you see today. More thought is given to that today than there ever used to be.

Q: Did exhibitors complain about dray-age then as much as they do now?

A: When I started there was nothing but an official contractor. Then the official contractors got real greedy. From there grew the people that eventually started a lot of the independent (contractors). It was primarily because of a need by the exhibitor. It just got worse and worse at the various shows.

Now you see a good selection of independents who understand their place. I think ever since then, the officials have in various ways tried to recoup as much as they could of that. They've started separate divisions, they have different company names. They understand that they need to be more client-focused.

Q: Has exhibiting gotten any easier over the years?

A: Well, there's something that's happening in corporations today. It's the downsizing, and the getting more for less. A lot of exhibit managers are relying more and more on the exhibit houses and their vendors. I don't know if it's right or wrong, but it's a change.

The exhibit manager in the company just doesn't have the time. When United Technologies first started doing tradeshows, there was a staff of 14 people here. There's now 1.5.

Everything was done internally. At the beginning with UTI, they used to build their own exhibits, store their own exhibits. A lot more stuff is now outsourced.

Q: Apparently, running one of the largest exhibiting operations in corporate America wasn't enough for you. Why did you get involved with TSEA and the wider exhibitor community?

A: It was an obligation to give back to the industry that supported us.

Q: Why should other exhibitors want to be involved?

A: There's no question there's an educational opportunity. There's a networking opportunity. There's the camaraderie of being with people who have been in the trenches with you, that have had to worry about a lost truck, or if the crane or the forklift is going to arrive or, gee, this fell over or what about this.

To me, TSEA is the best of it because it's a nonprofit association that's there to help the industry; that's trying to make the tradeshow business better; that works with convention centers, with official contractors, with show management.

Q: But you said that exhibitors are busier than ever. What makes it worth their time?

A: The contacts, the information. There's a wealth of knowledge, of people you can talk to when you go to these shows (like TS2 or the Exhibitor Show). Not only on the tradeshow floor, but at the cocktail party. That's where the networking comes in.

Q: Why then aren't more exhibitors involved? Why is attendance at the Exhibitor Show and TS2 such a small percentage of the total number of exhibitors out there?

A: People don't know enough about it. It's publicity. It's just about getting the word out.

Q: What's the best way for an exhibitor to find out how to do a better job?

A: Besides going to the events, if you have the opportunity at a show, walk around. I understand your main function is to make sure your booth is up and running. In many situations, you're required to man your booth as well.

But during a break, walk around. If you get the opportunity to do it with a marketing manager, look at the other booths.

You see something and say, "That's a good booth." Why? Is it the people who are working the booth? You'll find some booths that are fairly inexpensive, but very busy. They'll have a more successful show than a booth that's pretty, but where people are walking by and not showing any interest.

Q: What should most exhibitors know that they don't?

A: About the partnership with the show manager. Too many exhibitors fill out the form online, go to the show and never meet the show manager. It's the biggest mistake they can make.

The show manager should be your partner. They want a successful show just as much as you do. There are so many opportunities that can be gotten by just talking to the show manager.

One thing I prided myself on was that I could pick up the phone and call the show manager of any of the major shows we were in and be on a first-name basis. It's that dialogue, that relationship, that gets missed.

I think they're afraid of them, to tell you the truth. They say, "Oh my god, he's the show manager." But you're paying him.

Q: What could show managers do differently to make life easier for exhibitors?

A: Helping exhibitors fully understand where their costs are coming from would be the best.

I understand that there's a lot to the shows, but the show manager goes to their official contractor when they go out for bid and say, "Oh by the way — wink, wink — I want you to pay for all my registration area and all the aisle carpets, and I want you to give me all these freebies."

Sure there are freebies, but where do they end up going? Into drayage.

Recently, I heard the van line surcharge was coming back. You've got no idea how much that bothers me. I was on a TSEA committee that fought that years ago, that said this doesn't make any sense.

We fought it and we won. It's unfortunate that it's coming back. It's not fair, and I would hope that the younger people would fight it. You're not going to do that as an individual, you're going to do it as an association. That's where the strength of TSEA is.