TRADE SHOWS PART 7 – FROM THE BEGINNING

I noticed that I have been getting rather haphazard about the trade show information. My intent was to take you step by step through the process, not to bounce around here and there with our experiences. Once again, be aware that this information is all based on our experiences, and others may be different, more efficient, cheaper, etc. Additionally, keep those comments coming! Every comment goes a long way toward the collective education of clueless entrepreneurs everywhere. At least those who tune in to this blog.

I previously covered why we do trade shows of various kinds (doesn’t mean you should), how to find out about them and whether to sign up and lay down your dollars.

You’ve decided to go ahead and sign up for one, either a public or buyer show (not open to public). Now what?

1. Download the manual or any other available materials and read them! We have learned to do this before we do anything else. It may take some time after you sign up for the show for the manual to be available online or mailed to you, but make sure you read it the as soon as possible after it becomes available. It tells you how and by what date to order exhorbitantly expensive electricity, video, scantily-clad women to show off your wares for you, carpet, booth setups, and just about anything else you may need (we don’t rent anything). It provides shipping information, driving instructions, decorating instructions and requirements, booth configurations, and many other things. We immediately calendar any relevant dates. We also decide, based on the move-in and move-out schedules, what our travel arrangements will be.

For a local street fair or other public show, there will be no manual, but you will receive instructional materials. You just mainly need to know what times and days you can move in and move out and by what means.

After reviewing the manual, we call or email and get any questions we still have answered. We also calendar the booth assignment date. We call if we have not received notice by that date. It sometimes happens that the event company will take your money and forget to put you in the system.

2. Think about how you will get your booth equipment to the show. Will you drive and unload yourself, fly and ship, fly and bring your stuff as luggage, or some other combination? This ties into the design of your booth as well. If you plan to have an armoire in your booth, you most likely will have to ship it unless you live in the same city as the show.

You will be inundated with faxes and emails from shipping companies that want to give you a quote for shipping your goods to the show, even in you live in the same city as the show. If you plan to ship, go ahead and get a few quotes. The shipping setups are extremely easy—the truck comes to your house and picks up your boxes, moves them to the show site, and delivers them to your booth. All you do is get to the show, unpack, and set up. Empty boxes are then stored and returned to you after the show. You simply repack the boxes at your booth, leave them there and take off!

We are based in Seattle. We shipped our booth to a show in Chicago and the bill for 300 pounds (there and back) was $1,006. In a lengthy conversation with the truck driver, we discovered that it’s not the trucking company making the money; it’s the company putting on the show. The trucking company would have charged us about $200 for the whole thing. The rest was handling charges the event company charged once the goods got to the show site. It was hard spending the money, but it was actually cheaper for us to do it this way than driving to Chicago. Could we have hired our own trucking company? Ya, but the price would have been about the same because the financial hosing took place at the show site, not in the truck along the way and the trucking companies have no control over the handling charges.

Our next show is in Las Vegas in May, and we will be driving down and doing our own freight handling because it’s cheaper than flying and shipping our goods.

So, those are the first two steps we take. Concurrent with this is the booth design, which I will cover at length in the next few entries.