The Eyjafjallajökull volcano was not even a blip on my radar, and then it blew to smithereens before the show. My new products were stuck overseas and so was my booth staff. And I was in a world of hurt.
As a corporate event and trade show manager participating in some 30 trade shows a year, I've learned that this industry has so many variables that I'll never even imagine all the ways things can go wrong. Instead, I have mastered the fine art of staying calm and rolling with the punches, but I'll admit I never expected one of those punches to come from a volcano with a name I can't even pronounce.
I was in New York at a large biopharmaceutical show, preparing to set up my company's 40-by-40-foot exhibit, which was going to take several days. In addition to our existing line of equipment, we had two new products we would be launching at the show, one an improved design of a previous piece of equipment we sold for laboratories, and the other a brand new laboratory product. Backed by a significant pre-show marketing campaign announcing our new wares, we were ready to make a grand entrance into the marketplace starting with this important event.
My exhibit and a crate with the redesigned product in it, as well as some crates containing display items from our existing line, had been shipped well in advance from our company's warehouse in Wilmington, MA. The brand new invention was so new it was being sent directly to the show from the factory in Denmark, where it had been manufactured. Or so I was told.
During the first day of setup at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, I'd been hearing something on the news about a volcano that had been rumbling in Iceland. And later in the day, I got word that it actually blew to smithereens. But it was not even a blip on my radar. I mean, I was in New York, and I had serious things to worry about like whether my crates arrived on time, my banners were printed properly, and the sales staff flying in would be there on schedule.
Thus, I continued with setup all day Thursday, during which time I carefully checked the packing list and matched the number of crates in my space against my inventory list. On Friday, my colleague and I began opening product crates to set up the equipment displays. But when we opened the two crates we thought would contain the redesigned piece of equipment and the brand new one we were launching, we found neither. Instead, both crates contained components for the old model of the equipment that had been redesigned. Looking through the remaining crates and the warehouse where they'd been held yielded nothing. I was missing the new products I was to launch, and I needed to figure out where they were.
I called several colleagues who were not attending the show and enlisted them to help me locate the crates, holding onto some desperate hope that they were in the United States and I could have them set up by Tuesday when the show opened. But by late Friday afternoon I had an new problem brewing: My booth staff in Denmark and the United Kingdom could not get to the show because flights across Europe were banned due to the prolifically spewing ash that was wafting over the continent.
With no products to present and less than half of the booth staff I needed to launch them anyway, I was in a world of hurt. My situation had gone from "not good" to "bad" to "oh my god," and I needed a plan B fast. But I'd run out of hours in the day and was going to have to sleep on it.
Saturday morning I took stock of the products that had been shipped. They were not intended to be the stars of the show, but they would need to rise to the challenge now. We rearranged items to make it seem as if nothing was missing, but I had another issue. All of my pre-show promotions and a substantial amount of the exhibit graphics touted the brand new product we were supposed to be launching. So I ordered some new signs through show services, including one that acknowledged our new product and the fact that it had not made it to the show.
A stroke of luck was that the warehouse had accidentally sent the old model of the equipment that my company had redesigned, even though it was missing some components it needed to operate. As the company still offered the product, we could use it in the display if I could just get my hands on a few parts to make it functional. After a few calls, I tracked down one of our company engineers who worked out of our Wilmington office and would be attending the show. He quickly stopped by the office before rushing to catch his train so he could bring me what I needed.
With the help of the engineer, I got the piece of equipment functioning and set it up in the display where the new equipment was supposed to be. I wanted to play off of the fact that it was a product most labs have and tease info about our new (but missing) piece of equipment, so I had a graphic created that read, "Look Familiar? Want it to look better and decrease repetitive motion stress? Make an appointment to see the new product innovation."
I contacted the staffers I knew were not affected by the grounded flights and forewarned them that more than half of our people were stuck in Europe. With such short notice and because my company always staffed exhibits with employees, finding replacement booth workers was not likely. I began sketching ways how staffing the exhibit with seven people instead of 15 might work. All the while, I was still anxiously checking my email for some word on the crates or additional staffers, although by the end of the day Saturday I resigned myself to the reality that neither were going to show up. But the show had to go on. So I spent the next two days making sure my plan B, including a prepped staff, new graphics, and the functioning piece of equipment, would be in place when the show started and that we could roll with what we had.
Come Tuesday, the show doors opened, and my staffers were on top of their game, hustling to make sure no visitor was unattended. Attendees who were interested in the missing products were invited to our offices for a private showing. In the end, the trade show went very well even though it had started with some serious headaches.
But my migraine was nothing compared to many of the exhibitors who hadn't received any pieces of their shipment at all because of the volcanic ash. As they stood there in their barren pipe-and-drape booths, I felt sorry for them, and lucky that I had a little bit to work with and a plan B to fill in the rest.E
– Melissa O'Keefe, corporate event consultant, M.O. Event Management LLC, Boston
