show booths, let us see yours!

[blue moon]

'just came back from Vegas where we exhibited at a show. Mind's Eye Graphics partnered with us on this project even though stuff in the booth was ours. I threw a bunch of stuff on the skid and shipped it out. We ended up being few pieces short, but got the overall msg out pretty successfully. Those tables and the clothes rack were moved around for about an hour before we finally settled in on the configuration in the picture. No knocking the banner, it is old, did not have the time for something better. . .

pierre

[GraphicDisorder]

Looks pretty good, do you generate much sales from something like that?

[Screened Gear]

Pierre why were you not wearing shoes...wait that's a mannequin.

What show was that...I wanted to hit a Vegas show this year.

[blue moon]

Looks pretty good, do you generate much sales from something like that?

about 50% of our sales are from the show like that, most of the rest is word of mouth. It's a little different with contract printing, social media is harder to put in play (but we are in the process of giving it a shot).

do you exhibit at any car shows?

pierre

[blue moon]

Pierre why were you not wearing shoes...wait that's a mannequin.

What show was that...I wanted to hit a Vegas show this year.

that's Manny! He is in bits and pieces right now being trucked back to Ohio right now!

This was a UFG (united franchise group) show. They have signarama and embroidme franchisees. We just signed up to be their preferred vendor.

pierre

[mimosatexas]

pretty standard configuration when banquets is providing the skirted tables and pipe and drape.  Not a lot you can really do to make it stand out without hauling a bunch of extra crap with you.  I think the mannequin is a good idea, and tables don't look cluttered at all.  An external monitor for showing the video might have been nice.  We used to travel with two 30 inch samsung flat panels at my old job.  Just kept them in their original styrofoam packaging for easy travel.  People love candy/pens/etc too.

[GraphicDisorder]

Looks pretty good, do you generate much sales from something like that?

about 50% of our sales are from the show like that, most of the rest is word of mouth. It's a little different with contract printing, social media is harder to put in play (but we are in the process of giving it a shot).

do you exhibit at any car shows?

pierre

Nice, always wondered.

We used to back as late as 2006. Gave that up, couldn't be on the road/away that long anymore. We were hauling truck/trailer/etc all over the midwest/east/south. The cost of fuel and booth space alone was pretty steep at that time for our super small company. Always considered doing it again but no idea how id have the time/energy to do it anymore.  Was always on the road.

[bimmridder]

Candy and pens are nice, but I found aspirin and antacid tablets to be more popular. Maybe it's the crowd we cater to?

[royster13]

One of the printers I used to use in Alberta just parks his "wrapped" van outside trade shows...I heard he was at a locksmith trade show a while back and he had a brochure holders on the side of his van....Not sure how it worked but "guerilla marketing" is pretty cheap.....

[mk162]

I have a friend that designed the high end booths, some with 2 stories.  It was crazy, then they would store and ship them to the shows for the customers as well.  Really cool shop down there.

[jvanick]

I do tech work for a company that does a large trade show booth once a year (approximately 6400 sq feet), 2 levels.  There's a dedicated computer room, tons of network cable, typically 2-3 200a-3ph power drops, central a/c, and even a fire-sprinkler setup that's all part of the booth layout.  Kinda a fun change for me back to my 'pre-screenprinter' skills.

haven't seen anything like it in our industry.

takes about 4 days to set it all up, run a show for 3 days, and tear it all down.

Some fun stats:

show budget into 7 figures.
80 "workstations"
100+ LCD monitors
280ish employees
16 "private" demo rooms
14 FULL 53' semi trucks of which 1 53' semi truck is all the computer and network gear.
5 MILES of cat5 cabling.
private-line Gig-E connectivity back to a "core" datacenter.

Empty convention center:


this is when it was going up...


all set up:

[mimosatexas]

Talk about overkill lol...

[jvanick]

Talk about overkill lol...

yup.  but, they are one of the key vendors of that trade show (NADA), and are right up there with GM, Toyota, Ford, etc... so it's an 'image' sort  of thing.

it would be like going to SGIA and M&R's booth not being one of the biggest there.

-J

[mimosatexas]

Yea, I understand why they do it, but it's still crazy to me

I setup conferences and tradeshow stuff 20-25 times a year for 5 years before going full time with screen printing.  Never anything that crazy though   Granted my stuff was mostly public sector and justifying something like that to board members and tax payers would have been impossible.  I bet it was fun to watch it come together.

[jvanick]

been doing it for 15 years now... we have a well oiled team that comes together just to setup/run/teardown that show...  it rotates between 3 cities now (used to be 5): New Orleans, San Francisco, and Las Vegas.