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Finally, a Story
April 16, 2008

Sometimes it’s hard to be a reporter.

You know what’s going on, but you’re not sure when, if ever, you’ll be able to print the real news.

That’s why I was surprised last week when the Society of the Plastics Industry finally confirmed that Freeman would be the general service contractor for next year’s NPE – The Intl. Plastics Showcase.

Tradeshow Week staff heard about the show’s possible move from GES Exposition Services to Freeman more than six months ago – about the time NAB switched from GES to Freeman.

For weeks, Contributing Editor Gary Tufel and I tried unsuccessfully to get confirmation the move might occur. We were told by a Freeman spokeswoman to contact SPI. No one at SPI would return my phone call. The show’s spokesman said he didn’t know anything about it.

It was a dead end for months. We editors knew Freeman would most likely service the 2009 show, to be held June 22-26 at Chicago’s McCormick Place, but with neither SPI nor Freeman confirming it, we couldn’t print the news.

Then, last week Freeman sent us a press release, stating the agreement was formalized at the show’s space draw in February. Even with the agreement announced to exhibitors at that time, the show had Freeman hold off publicizing it to the industry until recently.

It’s just the latest example of news tips that take TSW editors months to confirm before we can (finally) let readers in on the secret.

Posted by Stephanie Corbin on April 16, 2008 | Comments (0)