ExpoOrganizationCommon mistakes made by expo organizers

Trade Show

PART II

Nicholas Hellmuth

November 2014

CONTENTSIntroduction 1

Presentation 2

Concrete floor not covered by a carpet 2

If expo hall floor is tile, it may be ok not to have carpet 2

Avoid leaving empty booths or spaces 2

Garbage and remnants of supplies pile up 3

Restrictions 4

Photo and video restrictions 4

Smoking inside the halls 4

Treating the Press in a professional manner 5

Staff and Expo Personnel 5

Attendants in the Info Booths should have better training 5

Don’t let booth personnel take down the booth whatsoever before the actual closing hour 5

Personnel forcing people out at the end of the trade show 6

Trade show advertising 7

Do not include tons of advertising on Row ID banners 7

Don’t put advertising in toilet area 7

If you have lectures, announce them, and signage them 7

Reduce the phony claims of product categories 7

Appendix A 8

A Good Example of Inadequate Expo Staff 8

* All items in this page are hotlinks

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PLEASE NOTEThis report has been licensed to Shanghai Modern International Exhibition Co., to distribute, since they are the organizers of APPPEXPO (Advertising, Print, Pack & Paper Expo), Shanghai. But this report has not been licensed to any printer manufacturer, distributor, dealer, sales rep, RIP company, media or ink company to distribute. So if you obtained this from any company, other than APPPEXPO, you have a pirated copy.

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Copyright 2014

INTRODUCTIONIn this segment of the report, we will provide you some of the common mistakes made by expo organizers

from all around the world. Most of these mistakes are caused due to the lack of time. Either way, we also give

some suggestion so you can manage to give a nice impression to your attendees at the end of the day.

Conceiving an ideal expo is (hopefully) the wish of every expo organizer. But in reality, out in the real

world, even good plans may not function. That’s why we mention big and small expos to demonstrate that

everybody can make mistakes, but still with the proper planning you can prevent a lot of issues with your

attendees.

The expos that we mention are not bad (or at least not all bad; even unsuccessful expos have some good

points). But for sure, not all trade shows are perfect, but there are so many mistakes that we have seen over

and over again, that trade show organizers should always keep an eye for these kind of flaws.

Introduction

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Presentation

Concrete floor not covered by a carpet

One or two halls at Photokina 2012 had no carpet. This makes that entire hall look cheap and abandoned.

At least one of the West halls at APPPEXPO 2014 had no carpet in some of the aisles. The lack of carpet also reveals the holes, where people can slip and fall.

Then Photokina 2014 had zero carpet in 80% of the halls (quite a downturn from 2012). If the concrete floor is at least painted a solid color, and if all halls are the same, then we will get used to carpet-less expos. But if one hall, or one aisle, has a sponsored carpet, than all the other halls look cheap and abandoned.

If expo hall floor is tile, it may be ok not to have carpet

The expo hall floor of the convention center in Panama was a nice brick-colored square ceramic tile. It looked fine with no carpet.

But still, most booths put at least a thin carpet over the floor inside their booth.

Avoid leaving empty booths or spaces

It’s very common that before the trade show and exhibitor turns absent or it may be moved to another hall, leaving as a result empty booths or spaces in certain halls. These spaces always give a bad impression to the attendees at the expo. So we suggest that empty spaces should be used by nearby exhibitors so they can expand their booths, giving a better look at the overall sight of the halls. Some expos also have improvised by turning these spaces into tiny lunch and rest areas, so attendees can have a place to sit down and rest for a while.

Panamá Expo Gráfica brick-colored tile floor

Empty booth at SIGN Istanbul

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But when you see a sitting area in a booth area, this is a reminder that an exhibitor pulled out (or was never found to begin with). So it still looks better to expand the nearby booths (at no cost to those booths) than to abandon the space or remind everyone by putting in chairs and tables.

Garbage and remnants of supplies pile up

Especially in the booth, the expos in some countries are infamous for having remnants pile up inside the booth. It is even worse if garbage piles up outside a booth.

Too many exhibitors use their booth to pile up junky looking supplies. This makes that entire area of the expo look cheap.

Noisy halls

I have had the opportunity to attend a lot of trade shows all around the world, some of them with halls completely full of CNC cutting machines. I consider this type of equipment is very noisy, even at ITMA China trade show there was a couple of halls filled with weaving machinery which produces 25% more noise than the CNC equipment, but without the uncomfortable fumes.

In these halls I could see a lot of people that were using earplugs to handle being inside the hall; even there was a person who compared the noise with “a room full of people working with old fashioned type writers”.

Expo organizers should try to keep the noise and fumes down a tad in exhibit halls of CNC routers and CO2 laser engravers. A special hall or space should be dedicated for this kind of equipment to keep it out of the halls with wide-format printers. It is not good to contaminate the halls of printers, inks, or media with the noise of CNC routers or the odor of burned plastics from CO2 laser engravers.

Fumes caused by CNC equipment

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Restrictions

Photo and video restrictions

When Pablo was walking at the ITMA Asia expo he could observe a lot of signs that it was forbidden to take pictures of the equipment. Some people wouldn’t even allow him to take pictures of the machinery when there was no sign that prohibited.

These situations makes a little difficult to do my research job as a journalist; but also make me curious about why almost mostly all the companies that forbade taking pictures were foreigner. So I walked around the show and asked some people about this signs and everyone shared the same opinion that is to avoid someone stealing their technology.

This argument is a little bit absurd and I agree with an exhibitor that told me that “to forbid to take pictures of the equipment during the exposition; in which the propose is that the people have access to the machinery and the manufacturer shows the new technology available, is a little bit contradictory and makes no sense exhibit in a trade show.”

The ironic thing is that when I finished talking with this exhibitor and was going to take pictures of the printer, a local distributor that was in the booth at the time, walked up to me and tried to stop me from taking pictures; so I told him that the manufacturer had already allowed me take some photos and that made him change his mind, letting me take pictures of the most minimum detail.

I can understand why the companies do almost the impossible to protect their technology; and how to blame them if in Shanghai you can find the “Fabric Market” in which if you go with a picture of

SGIA 2013 photography and video restriction sign

any fashion design and they will reproduce it in all details just based in the picture.

Besides, everyone is using the cell phone to take photos anyway. So it is not a clever idea to prohibit Press from using a camera. After all, the Press is working to promote the expo.

Expos need exhibitors and attendees to survive. To irritate the Press is not a clever idea.

Smoking inside the halls

You can understand the set-up teams and construction workers smoking on the set-up day (before the expo opens). But it is not a good idea to allow people to openly smoke in their booths.

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Treating the Press in a professional manner

Half the expos provide breakfast and lunch to the Press, at no cost, in the Press Room. The other half (Photokina the most obvious) charge high fees for meals and even cola in the Press Room.

So we are supposed to be making so much money off our reporting that we should pay Photokina a profit to encourage people to visit Photokina? I am not going to write a glowing review of an expo just because they feed the Press a meal, but an expo who charges even for Coke and nibbles is being cheap and exploitative.

Staff and Expo Personnel

Attendants in the Info Booths should have better training

Some people said that the students in the Info Booths were either sleeping, or glued to their cell phones texting, or eating much of the day.

Don’t let booth personnel take downthe booth whatsoever before the actual closing hour

It is traditional at all expos in China to pack up the booth on the MORNING of the final day. The expo venue staff even removed the chairs from seating areas several hours before actual closing time.

Then the booth personnel, especially of 3x3 meter booths (10x10’ in USA comparison) start packing their exhibits. By noon there is not much to see on the last day of the exhibit (officially the expo closes at perhaps 2 pm, but the last two hours there is no small or medium sized booth with anything functional).

It would be helpful if booths stayed functional until the official closing time.

SIGN China 2014 form filling counters

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Personnel forcing people out at the end of the trade show

It is tradition in almost all Chinese expos to have guards form a cordon and move everyone out. APPPEXPO was relatively mild this year, but no other country uses uniformed guards to march people out (and they start too early in any event).

One printer expo in the USA had a public announcement at the end of every day saying “expo is now finished, GET OUT OF THE HALL.” This loud and excessive demand was repeated again, to be even ruder.

At ISA they serve beer at the end and at other expos you are allowed to linger in the hall for at least half and hour (so that booths can have booth parties).

A trade show should be happy that people come to the expo; attendees should feel welcome. It is totally inappropriate to be military (marching people out) or as in USA, using the loudspeakers to rudely push people out horridly.

wynit Kaleidoscope lounge at ISA 2013

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Trade show advertising

Do not include tons of advertising on Row ID banners

Several expo organizers have crammed so many advertising logos and ad slogans onto the Row identification banners that it was almost impossible to see the row number.

Excessive advertising is self-defeating. Excessive advertisement is a tad excessive. The only thing that should be on a row banner is the letter or number (A to Z or 100 and up). Potentially the name of the expo also (as long as it is only one word!

Don’t put advertising in toilet area

Enough is enough. One USA expo (either ISA or SGIA) had ads in the toilet area or at least in the hand-washing area.

It is sleazy to put ads in the toilet area.

If you have lectures, announce them, and signage them

We recently attended a printer expo where ZERO signs announced the lectures; yes, they were listed in the Exhibitor List, floor plan, guide.

But you should have the entire lecture schedule at every entry and every exit and at the head of every aisle.

It also helps to announce each lecture on the PA system a few minutes before it is time to start a lecture.

Reduce the phony claims of product categories

Every company claims they sell a zillion product categories. Be more realistic, because these product category pages are a waste of space in your expo catalog.

When you are an exhibitor, you get a form to fill out to list your product categories. Naturally every manufacturer or distributor likes to be in every imaginable list. The result is the typical stupidity of expo catalogs of too many brand names for too many product categories.

It is understandable that expo organizers want to favor the companies who pay for booths. But by doing this, the category list becomes useless.

A company should be allowed to list only the products they have physically in their booth. Merely listing a brand name on your booth wall is not really exhibiting that product (I have seen several booths where the factory showed giant images of UV-cured printers but in reality these printers existed only in fiction and wishful thinking).

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Appendix AA Good Example of Inadequate Expo Staff

by Pablo Martinez

ITMA ASIA + CITME 2014 was at the same time of an exposition dedicated to logistics, cargo and transportation, which forced the ITMA staff to enable a temporary entrance closer to the north access.

This temporary entrance was closer to the subway station, which made me to go by this entrance. When I arrived the ITMA personnel (too young and unprepared for a trade show of this dimension), told me that I couldn’t get my badge in this entrance and should go to the south entrance to get my press pass. So I walked towards the south entrance, which is supposed to be a main entrance and not a provisional access, but it was merged in chaos. Staff attendants weren’t enough to handle the crowd.

Even though I tried to explain the trade show staff that all I wanted was to get my press pass to access the show, none of the people in charge managed to understand me. I even tried going counter-by-counter trying to explain my situation, until some attendant sent me to the assistance section where usually people go to complain.

When I reached to this counter, a lot of people seemed to be complaining about getting the wrong badges, and some of these people claiming to get the right badges were often kicked out. In this counter a nice lady tried to help me, but she couldn’t understand my registration papers, and she even tried to get her manager to read my papers, but even he wasn’t able to understand and walked away without a word.

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Once again, another attendant came up to me and tried to read my registration papers. Being unable to understand or to give me a reasonable solution to my problem, he gave me two options: return to the north entrance and try to get my badge there, or pay to get into the expo, even when I was already registered but they weren’t able to find me in their system. This led me to walk back again to the north entrance, only to get the trade show staff to send me back to the south entrance for the second time.

Tired and understandably irritated I walked once gain back to the south entrance (for those who yet haven’t attended to other expositions in this expo center, the distance between each entrance is approximately one kilometer).

Once again I went to every counter until finally a lady understood my registration papers and in five minutes she gave me my press pass.

Considering that ITMA ASIA + CITME is an international trade show that every year gains popularity with people all around the world, expo staff should be more friendly with non-local attendees. If getting the right pass is complicated to the local attendants that can speak Chinese, you can imagine what that means to persons that speak any language but no Chinese. It will be convenient to initiate a counter completely dedicated to international attendants with a staff that understand and speaks 100% English (or Spanish, German, etc).

ITMA ASIA + CITME 2014 registration counters

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