Exhibit managers typically bear the brunt of Plan B predicaments. But sometimes show management is knee- deep in these scenarios as well. As a floor manager for Penton Media Inc., a professional information-services company that also manages trade show exhibitions, I've also dealt with a handful of Plan B situations.

One such experience happened last year at a show Penton managed in Las Vegas. As is the case for almost all events I work, I was on site at the convention venue several hours before the show opened, wheeling around the massive exhibit hall on my motorized cart and looking for signs of anything amiss.

As I maneuvered the aisles, everything looked great. The hall was clean and bright, and the show had already drawn a good crowd. No doubt the exhibitors would be happy. I was so pumped that I started to whistle just as I turned the corner to traverse the very last aisle in the hall. But then I ceased my whistling and stopped dead in my tracks. Roughly halfway down the aisle, a massive structure seemed to be taking up most of a booth space. And while I couldn't make it out from that distance, I knew it was large, orange, and very out of place.

I hopped off my cart and jogged the last few paces to the exhibit space, where I discovered a 10-foot-diameter, formerly suspended sign had somehow come to rest across the booth's exhibitry and equipment. Sucking in a breath, I walked around the space, eyeballing the thing from every angle. Thankfully the structure hadn't come down during the show. Someone, and not just some exhibitry, could have been seriously injured.

Oddly enough, the sign seemed to be pretty much intact, and nothing underneath appeared to be crushed. But surely, something went terribly wrong for this poor exhibitor, and he or she had less than three hours to make it right – whether that meant rehanging the sign or simply just removing it and possibly repairing the exhibitry underneath it.

My first thought was to contact the exhibit manager and let him or her know what was going on. So I hopped on my cart and raced back to the floor manager's desk to look up the exhibitor's contact information. Unfortunately, I hadn't started up my computer yet, and the thing took forever to boot up. I flicked it on and sat back in my chair, willing it to power up at warp speed.

While I waited, I decided to get some of our crew started on a solution. I thumbed through my cellphone and found the contact info for the show's safety manager, the hanging-sign foreman, and the account manager assigned to this particular exhibitor. I gave each of them a call and provided the details of what happened, the precise booth number of the fiasco, and a plea to get down here pronto to help remedy the situation. They all agreed to start running possible Plan B scenarios through their heads on their way to the venue so they'd be prepared to do anything from simply hoisting and securing the sign to moving out damaged exhibitry and shuffling in rental replacements.

By the time I finished my last call, the computer was ready to go, so my fingers flew across the keyboard as I accessed the exhibitor's contact information. Generally speaking, exhibitors provide office numbers rather than cell numbers, so I thought that even with this info, I might still be out of luck this early in the morning. However, for once, I lucked out. The number I had was indeed an office number, but the company was on the East Coast, and the time difference meant the firm was already open.

So I whipped out my cellphone and called the exhibiting company's main line. I explained the situation to the person that answered and asked for the cellphone number of the exhibit manager. Bingo! She had it right there in her directory, so I quickly hung up and dialed the unlucky individual responsible for the booth. I held my breath as his phone rang and rang until he finally picked up. I exhaled loud and long, took a deep breath, and said "Sir, this is Sarah with Penton show management. I'm so sorry to have to tell you this, but there's been an accident in your booth. Nobody is hurt, and it's not certain if anything is damaged, but I think you'd better get here right away."

The silence on the other end of the line told me that panic had already taken root in the exhibitor's chest. "Sir?" I continued. "I don't think it's that bad. Can you come down here? We've already started work on a solution." Eventually he squeaked out "Yup. I'll be right down." He appeared at the booth about 30 minutes later, where the foreman, safety manager, and I had assembled. I could tell he was trying to remain calm, but the look on his face told me he was anything but relaxed.

"Good morning!" I chirped. "I know this looks bad, but believe it or not, we've assessed what happened, and determined there's very little, if anything, that's been damaged." The exhibitor became visibly relieved as I explained what had happened and walked him around the perimeter of his soon-to-be-repaired space.

As it turned out, the foreman and safety manager discovered that the sign's motor, which slowly rotated during the show, had somehow backed out of its attachment assembly. Don't ask me how, but the rotation of the motor – and likely something about the vibration – had unscrewed the portion attached to the sign from the section hooked to the convention-center ceiling. Bottom line: The measly little motor brought down the massive overhead element.

But the weirdness didn't stop there. We quickly brought in a crew to raise the sign and firmly reattach it to the ceiling. And as soon as they lifted it off the exhibitry, we discovered that neither the sign nor the components underneath it sustained any major damage. It was as if some flying monkeys had unscrewed the thing but then gently set it down atop the exhibit. So after offering a short prayer to the trade show gods, we got the sign back up and the booth dusted off before the exhibit hall opened.

As you can see, sometimes snafus affect show management as well. After all, we want the show to go on – and to be successful – for all involved. And just like you, these situations teach us a thing or two. I now request cellphone numbers from all of our exhibitors. That way, if disaster strikes, I can track them down at any time of the day or night – and hopefully head off their problems before they get to the show hall.