As the marketing director for KSK Color Lab Inc., I had been planning for EXHIBITOR Show in Las Vegas since the previous fall. Our team had come up with a 10-by-20-foot exhibit that highlighted our metal extrusions, fabric graphics capabilities, and creative finishing techniques. The completed product was a thing of beauty, and as I eyeballed it during the test setup in our showroom in February, I knew this was a home run of a display that was sure to impress attendees at the show.

The crate containing the exhibit was picked up from our Cleveland-area facility on March 10, which would leave plenty of time for it to reach Las Vegas for the setup window starting on March 14. Or rather, it was plenty of time if you didn't include spring blizzards in places that normally don't experience them, such as the shipping route our truck was supposed to take.

On March 11, I got word that the shipment was held up overnight, and weather forecasts showed more ice and snow coming. It appeared from the weather predictions, however, that the storms would be well east of our route, and our truck would only be one day late. Since we would still have two days before the show opened to get our exhibit on the floor and built, I wasn't overly concerned.

But forecasters were wrong – 600 miles wrong – and by March 12, our truck had not even left Ohio. I was facing the grim reality that our shipment probably wasn't going to make it on time, so I snapped into crisis mode. We needed a Plan B, and fast.

My first call was to one of our partners, Expolinc Co., to get hardware for a booth structure shipped from its Dallas warehouse to Las Vegas – a route that had no inclement weather. Next I called an emergency meeting at KSK to let folks know we needed to adjust production flow to fit in some rush graphics. Our original design was too specialized to be replicated with Expolinc parts, but we could design fabric graphics to fit one of its stock setups and overnight ship them to the hotel or carry them onto the plane.

Then I sat down with my KSK designer to figure out what this Plan B booth would look like and what its story would be. There had to be a way to still tell our tale and make something good come out of the situation.

We decided to admit that our real display was AWOL, and we came up with the theme "Imagine the Many Facets of KSK" – with an emphasis on "imagine." We designed one banner to include stock imagery of a truck stuck on a freeway during a snow storm, and we added the words, "Where the heck is the real KSK booth?" A second banner depicted the route between Cleveland and Las Vegas, with our logo on Cleveland and the show's logo on Las Vegas.

To have fun with the situation, we devised a contest in which attendees could guess where the truck was when it got stuck and when it would arrive at the show. In conjunction with our new "facets" theme, the winner would take home a piece of faceted jewelry from Tiffany & Co.

Before leaving Cleveland for the show, I contacted show management and Freeman, the general services contractor, to apprise them of our situation. I also arranged for some emergency setup hours late Sunday or early Monday (the day the show opened) in case the original shipment arrived before the show started.

When we arrived at Mandalay Bay on Sunday morning, we quickly set up the replacement display, but not before checking with show services on the chance that the original booth had been delivered. It hadn't.

I left the venue in my rental car to run some errands and, while sitting at a red light, I realized the truck waiting next to me was an affiliate of our freight company. In crazy-lady fashion, I rolled down the window and waved until I had the attention of the driver. "Do you have freight for EXHIBITOR at Mandalay Bay?" I shouted. He shook his head no, but offered to radio the marshalling yard to see if any of its other trucks were pulling in there. No luck, he called back, and then drove away through the now green light.

A few hours later, I received word that the truck was in Salt Lake City and would arrive at Mandalay Bay by 8 the next morning. Utterly elated, I called my team, Freeman, and show management, putting everyone on high alert that – no pressure – we would need to complete a full-day installation in about 3.5 hours, as the show doors would open the following morning at 11:30.

When the next day dawned, I was making my way to the freight docks when at least two Freeman staffers stopped me to say the truck was en route and they had a crew waiting there to unload it. Another Freeman employee asked me if I was the lady flagging down truck drivers at red lights. Apparently, word got around.

Members of my team quickly disassembled our Plan B booth while I reviewed setup instructions with the laborers. Then, right on time – except three days late – our truck backed up to the freight dock.

The next three or so hours were a blur for me, though I imagine the scene in our booth was probably like watching a video of an installation with fast forward pressed. But at 11:20 a.m., Freeman was picking up our empty crate, our beautiful booth was standing, and it was like none of the drama had ever happened.

I had the tiniest tinge of regret that no one would ever see our Plan B booth, because I was kind of proud of the solution we'd come up with and the teamwork, communication, and partnerships it had taken to get there. Of course, it was 1,000 times better that we had our real exhibit, but it felt good to know there was a solid Plan B waiting in the wings in case the truck got stopped short of the dock that morning by yet another freak act of nature.

— Marla Makaryk, marketing director, KSK Color Lab Inc., Cleveland