The Replacements

We've all heard the stories about booths that didn't arrive or graphics that got lost in transit. But what do you do when you are the one that can't make it to the show? That's the problem I faced at the 2010 American Society of Echocardiography (ASE) show in San Diego.

My company, Fujifilm Medical Systems USA Inc., had a 20-by-30-foot space - a sizable presence for us - at the trade show. My job was to oversee a training session for booth staffers on a new lead-gathering process we planned to implement at ASE and to manage those last-minute details that only seem to arise during a booth's installation.

However, on the Thursday before the show - which was one day before I was supposed to fly from our New York office to San Diego - I got a call that a loved one was being rushed to the hospital. While family is always more important than any trade show, I was still considerably worried about how my co-workers would cope at the show while I stayed on the East Coast taking care of my family obligations. But the tasks I was prepared to do needed to be handed off to someone with the skills to do my job. And since nobody in the company does exactly what I do, finding someone to handle those tasks wasn't going to be easy.

After I made sure my family member was out of danger, I started looking for my replacement. I figured it'd be easier for two people to take on these new tasks, so I split my duties into manageable chunks.

The first chunk comprised booth installation. So I called a co-worker who had some experience setting up a booth at smaller shows and was already planning to be at ASE. We talked about my plans for the booth and what he would need to be aware of during the installation. While he already had his own duties, he assured me he could oversee the work crew and make sure the company ended up with the booth I wanted.

The other big part of my job was the lead-management training session. I had expected to be the point person at the training session, explaining how to use the new lead-management system and how that system would work in conjunction with the attendee questionnaire we'd developed. Unfortunately, there wasn't any single person who could do both of these tasks at the training session. While the exhibit house knew how the system worked, it didn't have a lot of information on our questionnaire. And while my co-workers had helped develop the questionnaire, no one else from my company knew about the exhibit house's system.

So I called my exhibit house to get one of its staffers to take over the training session. As it turned out, getting the exhibit-house rep to fly to San Diego cost about as much as it would have cost for me to attend, so the expense turned out to be a wash. Next, I found a co-worker that had helped develop the questionnaire - and planned to attend ASE - who could discuss the survey, which the exhibit-house rep wasn't able to discuss.

By the time the show started on Sunday, my loved one was doing better at the hospital, and I was able to monitor my cell phone for any last-minute questions. In the end, I discovered the booth went up well and the training session on our new lead-gathering process went smoothly. So not only was my family member fine, but also our exhibit-marketing plans went off without a hitch.

- Steven Marchese, event manager, Fujifilm Medical Systems USA Inc., Stamford, CT


Show Time

According to the old saying, "The show must go on." But when Mother Nature rained on our three-day client event, I needed to find a dry venue for the show, or it would be curtains for me.

My company, ME Productions Inc., an event-planning firm based in Miami, had arranged a fun-filled South Beach weekend for our client as it sought to honor and educate its sales staff a couple of years ago. In addition to an awards night for the sales staff - complete with a custom-built stage - and some general sessions in the mornings, we had planned to treat the 230 salespeople and guests to golf outings, fishing, trips to Key Biscayne, FL, and other excursions. The idea was to fly the folks into Miami and treat them to some fun in the sun.

But a couple of days before the group was to arrive, the weather report warned of a possible hurricane crossing the tip of Florida. Hoping the storm would change course - as hurricanes often do - we continued with our plans.

Unfortunately, the day before the event, we discovered that the storm would, in fact, impact the Miami area. So the outdoor activities we planned would have to be canceled. In fact, if we didn't want our guests hiding in their hotel rooms, we'd need to move the whole event out of the storm's path. Thankfully, years of show-biz training had taught me never to panic. After all, there's more than one way to keep the audience entertained.

Since the venues in and around Miami were out of the question, I got on the phone and checked with our offices in Orlando, FL, to see if we could find a hotel that not only had enough space to accommodate the guests for three nights, but also provided enough room for the event's general sessions and the awards program. Orlando, thankfully, was outside of the hurricane's projected path, making it a safe alternative to Miami.

As it turned out, there was a hotel available right near the Universal Studios theme park. So I told my colleagues at our offices in Orlando to take care of the hotel reservations, call around to some golf courses for tee times, and make plans for excursions to the theme park for our guests.

Meanwhile, I made arrangements to transport all of our attendees from Miami to the new venue in Orlando. With the storm leaving plenty of tour buses available, I had our guests picked up from the Miami airport and driven up the road to Orlando.
My crew and I then packed up the stage we'd designed and hauled it upstate to the new venue for the show. There we spent the day setting up the stage for the opening night extravaganza, finishing just in time for the curtain to rise on the award show.

Fortunately, Orlando was a big hit with the client, whose staffers enjoyed the theme park, golfing, and basking in the sunshine. And other than a four-hour bus ride to and from the airport in Miami, there was really no inconvenience for them. Now that's getting the show on the road.

- Hal Etkin, founder and CEO, ME Productions Inc., Hollywood, FL