If the Show Organizer moves your booth without consultation with you,
your entire pre-show promotional campaign can be destroyed.

It happened to us!

(DO readto the end of this article to see what happened when we tried to take the Organizer's offer up too!)

We have a sister company, Captain Coffee (www.captaincoffee.com.au).

This is what happened. And after much thought, what we might have done to avoid the problem.

Captain Coffee is a very new organization. Initially we were not so sure that we really wanted to exhibit until we could generate cash flow & build a more solid financial base.

However the sales person was helpful, persuasive & persistent (which I admired) & created a spot for us in a great location. Quoting from one of her emails “Let me know if you are not happy with this site however as discussed I have created it especially for you...”

What service! What a great spot! How could I refuse? I signed the contract…

Our promised location was right outside a major coffee pavilion & the sales person commented “I’m pleased you like the site, it will be perfect for your first foray into our shows.”

A little before the show she wrote “Please note that we have had to change some stand numbers to ensure they are logical in that top row, your stand number is now D52 as opposed to D54. Your location has not moved and I have attached an updated floor plan for your perusal.”

This is the booth location we were sold.

Through Best of Show I had worked with the Organizer as an Exhibitor trainer many times. They had always insisted that they would NEVER move an exhibitor without consultation & I totally believed them.

So to attract an audience for Captain Coffee we did extensive (& expensive) pre-show promotion mostly focusing on Google Adwords plus direct promotion to our Customer & Prospect Base.

The message was “Meet Captain Coffee to discuss YOUR FRESH Coffee Supplies! Booth D52 right next to the Bean Scene Coffee Experience”.  We directed as much of our precious budget into that promotion as we dared. We based it around our web page & directed people to that. It included the floor plans you see above.

Disaster!

When I arrived for setup I could not find our booth. 

Where the floor-plan & our pre-show promotion had said that it would be was a large blue truck promoting a transport ticketing system! In front of that was a motor company – neither of which being remotely related to food & wine!  Certainly there was no sign of our booth!

This is where we were moved to – nowhere near our promoted location.

As you can see we had been re-located far from our promoted location.

To make it even worse (FAR worse), the Organizer retained our booth number – yet placed us in a location completely out of sequence with the numbering system of the show.

This combination rendered our pre-show promotion worthless. It also rendered the Show Guide worthless to us as our booth location was between the A & B rows. There were large exhibitors & a wash area between us & the rest of the D row exhibitors so we could not be seen from row D.

The new aisle itself had been hastily created & not planned well at all. It reflected that this had been a very last-moment decision on the part of the Organizers so they could accommodate the large new exhibitor & was a truly bad location to be placed in. It NEEDED to be rejected, doubtless why the Salesperson decided not to communicate the decision to us.

It was a “dead-end aisle”, not very common at shows anywhere, with no destination to draw traffic past us. We were also shielded from sight down the main aisle - hidden behind a book signing stand. So we could not even use very much passing traffic nor attract visitors with our signage. What a mess!

When I say “no destination” to draw traffic past, I mean no “browsing destination” – like more booths. It WAS however in the corridor to the book signing table.  So hundreds of people lined up behind a barrier to get their books signed. They could not leave the queue as they would lose their queue position & also because they would have to climb over the barrier.
 

 View from Attendee's Viewpoint

 View from Captain Coffee's Stand

Adding insult to our already smarting injuries the Organizers also extended the crowd control barrier between us & the show floor - thus totally isolating our booth (picture above).

Thankfully sanity eventually prevailed in the face of howls of protest from ourselves & other exhibitors in that row & they removed some of the barrier – but we were still isolated by the line.

Truly – if I had not experienced it I would NEVER have believed it possible in a professionally run Show!

What was the Solution?

I have thought about this a lot since this experience. What could I have done to prevent this - if I had seen it coming?

There may not BE a perfect solution. But if you - & I – are to avoid such a situation in the future these thoughts should help.

1. Keep a very close eye on your booth location as the show draws near. I do NOT advocate becoming a nuisance to Show Organizer staff. But with Good Food & Wine in Sydney coming up this week I have certainly been emailing the new Salesperson for assurance that Captain Coffee is still where Captain Coffee is supposed to be!
   
2. Create a relationship with the Organizers, especially the Salesperson. Show them how you are promoting, share your wins, share your goals, share your excitement. The larger the show the harder this is but when Organizer staff feel that they know you personally they begin to share your project & it is FAR more likely that they will feel bound to communicate “as a friend”.
   
3. Arrive early for setup. In fact I did but then I wasted valuable time politely waiting. Read on…
   
4. Can you live with the move? It could be that the new arrangement works for you. Suppress feelings of panic & other unwelcome emotions – COULD this be an advantage to you?
   
5. If you must move, ACT QUICKLY! You will probably need the Organizer’s Contractors & you need to invoke them urgently. When their job is done they vacate the show & your options become far more limited.
   
6. Seek alternatives that will work for you & that you have a chance of winning. Later in the show Diversified allowed a VERY last-moment exhibitor to locate where the blue arrow indicates. (This was a day into the show! The “big blue truck” only took up a part of the space noted on the new floor plan). If I had acted quickly & decisively we MAY have been able to have been re-located to where the red arrow indicates & the picture shows – within view of our contracted space & “row D". (Our contracted location was where the woman is standing).
   
   

   Possible location if I had not waited.	Possible location photo

7. Time is vital! If you don’t get action quickly, do NOT be “polite”! While I would NEVER advocate being a bully, my “good nature” turned out to be a BAD mistake. Organizer staff brushed me off as their being too busy. Visits to the Organizer’s Office met with polite promises that “someone would call”. Hours passed & no-one did. I & fellow displaced exhibitors gradually became angry & resentful. Meanwhile the various Contractors that would have been needed to move the booth left the show so then nothing COULD be done.
   
8. If all goes wrong, invoke highest authority. By sheer coincidence I encountered the Show’s Australian Country Manager (Managing Director) on the show floor & related the problem. Within ten minutes of that conversation senior Organizer staff arrived at my booth. In truth it goes VERY much against the grain to write this, but regrettably sometimes it must be considered. I hasten to say that this was after some hours of being ignored & at a point where I was having serious concerns that an adjacent exhibitor in the same situation might invoke arrest!
   
9. Don’t assume that the Organizers care. Many Organizers are fantastic & DO care – very much indeed. But sadly some don’t. Just don’t ASSUME that they do. If they have “bumped” you without consultation it’s a fair bet that those ones don’t! The sales-person’s comment was “I wondered if I should tell you but decided not to”. The Exhibition Manager sent text messages while I was talking with her - & was indignant when I objected saying that she had “security matters” to attend to! She also complained that if they gave me what I was asking for – free entry into the Sydney show – that would cost them $3,000 in lost revenue – Captain Coffee, a tiny start-up company - had lost FAR more than that!
   
10. Don’t assume that you have legal remedies. You don’t. The Organizer wrote the contract’s Terms & Conditions so there is unlikely to be a way out for you. Anyway, who wants the aggravation? You want to market – not fight!
    
11. Negotiate the best “remedy” you can. You may or may not be able to save your show from disaster this time. But what can you negotiate? And if other exhibitors are in the same situation & have accepted “deals” to placate them, you are NOT bound to accept the same deal, no matter what the organizer’s “policy” is! I’ll leave it to your own negotiation skills but remember that your losses are not the same as theirs and nor should there be a “one size fits all” accommodation.
    
12. Look for new opportunities. We went along the book-signing queue & handed out our fliers & discount vouchers. Sure - it's against the rules to work off your booth but who was going to stop us at that point? Besides, it's always FAR easier to ask for forgiveness than permission in such situations! Another exhibitor who was selling snacks, was able to have the queue redirected slightly so that they could sell directly to the waiting, imprisoned & hungry crowd.
    
13. Watch your own reactions. What I have described is a truly dreadful way to begin & indeed continue a Show! If you are working the booth, be very careful that your attitude to visitors is 100% positive! I kept finding my own arms crossed & defensive & had to consciously relax & smile.
    
14. Leave on the best terms you can with the Organizer. Sure, you may decide that you’ll never exhibit with THAT show again! But you DID decide to exhibit there for a reason. When the dust settles you may want to re-consider. Make that easy to do – we’re all just people doing the best we can!

Do YOU have a story to share? Let us know - maybe we'll publish it. Especially if it started badly & ended up on a high note for everyone concerned!

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