Trade shows must evolve

I just recently got back from a job in Vegas, setting up a trade show display for a client. I had a local union laborer there to help me with the heavy lifting, and we got it done within budget, with a happy client. By any standards, it all went well. But there were a lot of small things that made me think that trade shows, at least the big ones, are on the way out.

Now, keep in mind, I've been involved in designing, building, installing and maintaining tradeshow booths for clients for the last twenty odd years. I've been to just about all of the big Tradeshow cities at one time or another. The economy has gone up and down, and will go up and down again and again. But there were some signs that things are coming to a head in this industry. For tradeshow people, a lot of what I say will seem simplified, but the teeming millions that read this might not be as informed.

These are small things, as I said. Any one of them would barely have registered on me in the normal course of things. The first was the freight. We shipped to the advance warehouse. The big advantage of the advance warehouse is that when the schedule says you can start setting up at 8 in the morning, you go in at 8 and your freight is there, on the floor. If you had shipped direct, 8 would be the earliest possible time they would unload your truck, which means you might get it at 8:05, you might get it at 10, 12, 5, you never know. But we had gone to Advance - we were good. Not only that, but my labor company had checked on it the day before, and the freight desk had said they would get to it that evening. When I got to my booth, there was no freight. It was 7:30, so I wandered to the freight desk and asked when I'd get my stuff. I was told it was in a truck being unloaded, 45 minutes, tops. My labor shows up at 8 and I tell them to stick around, we'll be able to start any moment. at 8:45 I go over to the desk and ask again. They say it will be any minute. At 10:15 I get my first bit of freight. I've paid my guy for over two hours for nothing. Well I've been in the business for a while, being lied to by union people is something I'm used to. But when I go to complain, they try to tell me that Advance works that way. The start time is when they start bringing stuff in. I should be grateful I got stuff in that morning. They later admitted lying on that point, but by that time, they had lied about enough things that I wasn't interested in what they had to say.

To make a long story short, similar things happened with electrical, and with the pipe and drape people. And they all were similarly dismissive - being screwed is how it is supposed to work, just put your face in the pillow and think of England. This is now a standard operating procedure: Lie, and if they call you on it, say that it's always like that. It was system wide, and showed a contempt for the exhibitor that this industry just can't afford.

Now, as I said, we still got everything done. The client was happy with the job I did. But the show was about 65% of what it had been the year before. All of my clients are pulling back. But those numbers are heavily tied to the economy, and the economy will turn around. Eventually. I'm confident it will. Any day now.

But by that time, will people really want to go through the truly monumental and growing inconvenience for these shows? What about virtual meetings, teleconferences, and smaller venues? Short answer will be yes and no. There will always be a need for face-to-face meeting, for hands on demos of products, for socializing with your peers. But will those needs be met by trade shows? Or are there more accessible, more convenient, and ultimately more profitable methods? If an exhibitor spends 60k on one show, would that more profitably be spent in online, possibly viral, marketing backed up by a more decentralized and mobile sales force? Or even inviting all their customers to a big party? I should note that most of my clients have been talking of downsizing their shows for years now. Maybe now is a good time. Maybe someone with a great out of the box idea for getting people together will find a way to capitalize on this.

My point is this - trade shows are enormous beasts. They are one of the first things to be trimmed when the budget shears come out. No one I know really likes doing them - that's why they hire me to handle all the details. Almost all the talk I hear about economic growth is not in heavy industry but in ideas, software, the sciences, things that don't require a lot of hands on, with personel who are already intenet savvy, so online meetings will grow. If we get socialized healthcare, a lot of small business are going to spring up, and they will mostly be going to smaller local shows. The field is changing, and the dinosaurs need to evolve. How can I sell a client on a big trade show booth production when everywhere I turn, people are trying to make the experience as difficult and torturous as possible?