Full disclosure dictates that I begin this blog by telling you that I am an Exhibit Manager by trade and, therefore, given the choice between outsourcing my job to an exhibit house and doing it myself, I’ll always opt to do it myself.
I started in the trade show industry by pure accident. I was a web developer for a small educational company around the time Compaq was purchased by HP. Compaq had the number one spot at the Texas Computer Education Association show in Austin. They were in a 30×40 directly inside the only entrance to the show. Someone at either Compaq or HP dropped the ball and gave up the space. My company was on the upgrade list and jumped at the opportunity move into the spot and sponsor the show.
I went to the show just to see what it was like and found out from our VP of Marketing that we’d paid $5,000 to have our small exhibit transported from Dallas to Austin and back. I also found out that our next show was in Orlando in six weeks. I said something to the effect of “Shoot, I can drive to Orlando and back for less than $5,000.” The next thing I knew I was in a Ryder cruising through Louisiana and starting a new career.
Our first exhibit was a used modular that we purchased from The Trade Group in Dallas. As exhibits go, it was OK and got us up and running. We used that booth for two years and used an exhibit house the first year for everything from storage to shipping to I&D. As we increased the number of shows on our schedule my position became more permanent and I began looking for ways to reduce costs.
Forms
I started by completing my own forms from the show exhibitor manuals. The exhibit house I was using charged me 25% of each service on top of the service. That means the already outrageous $1,000 Internet connection went to $1,250 just to have someone fill out a form. The worst part was that I still had to provide the information to the exhibit house.
Supervision
After our first two shows I found that we were paying for an I&D supervisor as part of our labor costs. Our exhibit required two guys for about 3 hours to assemble. There wasn’t anything technical about it and I was on site for any questions. I told our exhibit house that I would supervise the I&D which saved us the cost of one man for four hours of supervising a booth he spent ten minutes at. That savings alone covered my flight and meals.
Transportation
The next cost reduction occurred by accident. Our exhibit house had hired a transportation company to deliver our exhibit to a show in Seattle. Everything went smoothly until I received a call about six weeks after the show from the driver. The transportation company hired by our exhibit house had gone belly up. It turns out that they’d outsourced the job to an independent driver. If you’re keeping track, I’ve now hired someone to hire someone else to hire yet another someone else to transport my exhibit.
The driver had not been paid by the company that hired him and was looking to me to pay his bill. Since we’d already paid the exhibit house I wasn’t about to pay again for the same service. I told the driver that I couldn’t help him with that bill but that I could give him more business if he was interested. Thus began a long and happy relationship with Ward Hill of W.W. Hill who I highly recommend. With all the up charges from the two middle men, it had cost me almost $10,000 to ship my ¼ truck exhibit round trip to Seattle. By directly using W.W. Hill, even when my new exhibit required a full truck, I was able to ship anywhere in the country for well under $5,000 and usually under $3,000 round trip.
Storage
Two years into our show program we decided to have a new exhibit custom built. I name each of my exhibits and this one was called “Fat Man”. When all was said and done, Fat Man required a full 53’ truck to transport. It also required more space to store. I checked with a number of exhibit houses and was astounded by the prices. The cost of the space itself bad enough but when you include the cost of “touching” each piece when we went to a show, the cost became astronomical.
Fat Man consisted of 15 crates ($50 each to touch), 6 carpet bags ($25 each), 1 job box and 1 palette ($50 each). Add that up and it cost me $1,000 to load my truck for each show. Oh, and another $1,000 to unload it after the show. It didn’t cost me that much for the truck for most shows.
Luckily, about the same time we built Fat Man we moved into a new warehouse which had plenty of room for us to store several exhibits. Using Fat Man at five shows a year would have cost us $10,000 to move in and out of the exhibit house on top of the $12,000 storage fee. Storing our exhibit in our own warehouse more than paid for the warehouse annual rent and a small fork lift.
The other thing storing our own exhibit did was allowed me access to it whenever I wanted without a fee or an hour drive each direction which leads me to my next point.
Job Box
I said above that Fat Man included a job box. The first two shows we actually had two palettes but, as you can imagine, this was just asking for problems. I went to the local Home Depot, purchased a Geenlee box for $400 and organized all the tools, parts etc. I’d seen wood job boxes at several shows and figured a metal construction box would be even better.
The first show I took it too was in New Orleans. While walking to my booth a forklift passed me carrying my job box… with the lid dangling over the side. Upon further examination, it appeared as though a driver had gotten up to speed and slammed on the breaks sending my box sliding along the floor on its back until it hit a wall. What actually happened is still a mystery but I was amazed that a job box built to withstand the rigors of an outdoor construction site failed to last one trade show. I took photos and contacted Champion who, to their credit, accepted responsibility and quickly wrote me a check for the full cost. I promptly found a much stronger box.
This new box wasn’t just bigger but allowed me to organize it better. I spent most of a week gathering all the items I could possibly need on the show floor and fitting them into my box. I purchased carpet tape at $60 for a case that lasted me the entire year. I bought my own duct tape, gaffer’s tape, electrical cords and power strips. I bought a DeWalt cordless screw gun and all the other tools needed to install my booth. Fat Man included a 35 foot bridge made of Octonorm. Octonorm, if you don’t already know, uses a special metric screw with a star head. The screws were $1 each from the manufacturer. I went to a local hardware store and found the same metric thread with a Philips head for about $5 per hundred. I bought two boxes and a couple dozen Philips bits.
If I needed it, or thought I might need it, to erect my booth I had it in my box. So much so that some of the exhibitors we saw at multiple shows knew where to come for stuff. I think I spent something like $1,500 to purchase and stock my box which paid for itself in just a few shows.
Between shows, when my box was back in the warehouse, I spent a day cleaning it up and replacing items as needed. By keeping my box stocked and organized I didn’t waste time at shows looking for things that were misplaced by someone, or nonexistent, from the last show. By having the box I was able to avoid paying $18 per roll, or portion thereof, of carpet tape from the I&D company or $25 to RENT a power strip. I also avoided paying the I&D guys for the time to go and find tools, tape etc.
Labor
It wasn’t until we began storing our exhibit that I looked into going direct in regards to my labor. Even then I went with the same company the exhibit house had used. I used this company exclusively for three years until they dropped the ball. We had two booths, 20×20 and 30×40 at our biggest show and required six people to install both exhibits. Apparently there was another show in nearby city and most of the labor went there. What was left was sent to my show and it was obvious we’d been given the bottom of the barrel. When I complained to my account executive at the I&D company I was met with denial and excuses. All I was looking for really was “I’m very sorry and it won’t happen again” but his pride got the better of him and they lost my business.
I tried several I&D companies over the next few shows but found issues with their limitations in regards to cities they were established in and other problems. One of the biggest issues I found was the quality of labor. What should take 12 to 14 hours was taking 16 and more. I was saving by not involving a middle man but was losing everywhere else.
I contacted a friend that worked for an exhibit house whom I’d met through another exhibitor. We went over some numbers and found that even with his middle man charge he could save me money over what I was paying direct. How? Well, first, he had relationships with I&D companies all over the country and knew people by name. This meant he could get a better rate because they wanted to continue getting his business. But more than that he knew who the quality guys in the city were and requested them by name as well.
In most cities we used CSI which I have nothing but good things to say about. What should be a 12 hour install CSI Anaheim did in 9 and I didn’t feel rushed. Cutting a couple of hours off the install time covers the cost of the middle man and a quality crew lowers my stress level.
Dedicated Problem Solver
There’s another reason to have a dedicated exhibit manager on your payroll. An exhibit house is interested in your business and they will give you the best service they can for the price you’re willing to pay. But you aren’t their only client and you probably aren’t their biggest. They also don’t really have any real interest in your company’s success. But an employee of your company has a direct interest in your success and will know your product, booth staff and how you present at shows.
The best example I can give you goes back to our show in Seattle. Seattle’s convention center expanded at some point and they connected the two buildings with a hallway. On the floor plan it just looked like a hall between the buildings and our space was in this area. Our thinking was to be in the bottleneck where every attendee had to pass us. Good idea huh?
When I arrived in Seattle, I checked into my hotel room and then headed to the convention center to scope out my space. I almost had a heart attack when I saw the hallway was in fact a sky bridge which was completely surrounded in glass. Our presentation uses a projector on a screen and, even with complete cloud cover, the ambient light completely washed it out.
I immediately called my boss and informed him that we had a problem. The next morning we moved forward with the booth install but looked for ways to fix the issue. We ended up ordering pipe and drape to cover the booth in a black canopy which solved the issue.
We solved the problem and had a great show but had my company not had a dedicated person on site they wouldn’t have known of the problem until the morning the show opened. The I&D company wouldn’t have caught the problem and who could blame them? Show management and the GC wouldn’t have seen it.
There are examples from almost every show we’ve been to where having a dedicated person working for our company avoided or saw problems before they became major issues. Something as simple as the show deciding to open another entrance can change how you want to install your exhibit. How larger companies exhibit successfully at shows without an exhibit manager is beyond me and I have seen many examples where a company clearly made the wrong decision.
Conclusion
A decision of a company to hire a full time exhibit manager or use an exhibit house will depend on many factors. If you’re doing 10×10 booths at a few shows a year it’s a waste of money to hire someone full time. But the larger your presence at shows is and the more shows you go to the more a dedicated person will benefit you. Yes, you will have another salary to pay which doesn’t come cheap. But a good manager can easily save enough on even a medium sized program to pay for themselves.
Posted by Tom Poalinelli 
