The sheer number of things that can go wrong when you're exhibiting domestically is hard for even seasoned exhibit managers to comprehend. But when exhibiting overseas, not even Pythagoras could calculate the potential for disasters. And when mayhem strikes and you're 7,000 miles away, you'd better have some serious connections if you want any hope of surviving it intact.

I had just such a situation when I was managing trade shows for a defense contractor. My company was planning its first display at the International Defense Exhibition & Conference (IDEX) in the United Arab Emirates, and with a 900-square-foot booth to promote four product lines, it was going to be a grand entrance. We had even opted for a double-deck structure to facilitate all of the in-booth meetings we were anticipating. The international exhibit house we were using for the first time had suggested we build the display in Egypt and then truck it through Saudi Arabia to the UAE to save on costs.

Preparations went off without a hitch, and a week before the show was to open, our display was loaded onto two trucks and sent down the highway. My boss was getting ready to board a flight for the UAE the next day while I managed logistics from home, and all was well in the exhibiting universe.

Then my phone rang. It was the stand builder calling to say the trucks had experienced a slight delay at the Saudi Arabian border, but that she was monitoring the situation. This company had a lot of experience in the Middle East, and we still had three days, so I felt suitably assured that everything was under control.

But the funny thing about control is that even when you think you have it, you don't. The phone call that came 24 hours later taught me that in spades. It was the stand builder again. The good news was that one of the two trucks had made it through customs. The bad news was that the second truck had been impounded.

Apparently border patrol discovered that the truck just ahead of our second one was hiding drugs. So, in a sweeping decision that made no sense at all to me, officials impounded not only that vehicle but also every single other truck waiting in line.

My head immediately started spinning with questions. What was on the truck that got through? Did we have any way to influence these officials? What were we going to do if they refused to release the truck? My manager's flight had just departed, and I needed to have a plan in place for her by the time she stepped off that plane in 15 hours.

Kudos to our stand builder, whose calm assurance miraculously kept me from completely freaking out. She said we would have a booth one way or another, but told me to get on the phone and call any U.S. State Department connections we had while she determined what exactly was in the first truck, which had successfully crossed the border, as well as which components were still on the second and would need to be replaced.

We had contacts at the U.S. Embassy, U.S. Department of Commerce, Saudi government, and U.S. Department of State, and a team of us burned up the phone lines throughout the day trying to find someone who could shake our truck free from this customs snare. Our efforts got more frantic after the stand builder informed us that everything but the exhibit structure was on the first truck. That meant we had a reception counter, graphics, and product-display stands, but no actual booth to put them in.

Our calls weren't netting us any movement on our impounded truck, because apparently Saudi customs can be influenced by no one. We still had about two days before setup and five days before the show opened, and while it was conceivable that the truck would be kicked loose in time to get to the venue for setup, I would have had to be insane to count on it.

The best option, our stand builder said, was to rebuild the structure from scratch in the UAE. The company was very well connected in that region, and she assured me it had the resources to get the job done. The biggest casualty of doing so, however, would be that we could never have the engineering for the upper deck approved in time, so we would lose all of our second-story meeting rooms. Even so, it was better than no booth at all. I gave the builder the go ahead to sketch out a plan for how we could recoup at least some of that space on the floor level and contact its sources in the UAE to put a build crew and some materials on hold. Then I called my manager, who hadn't landed yet, and left a voicemail about the situation. If the truck wasn't released in the next 24 hours, I told her, we were going to have to use the replacement exhibit.

More phone calls for the truck's release during the next 24 hours brought nothing, so 72 hours before the show doors opened, the crew began constructing an entirely new exhibit. This one would be a build and burn, but it bore a remarkable similarity to the booth lost in customs land. We did go ahead and build the frame for a second level just for the visibility it provided on the floor, but since we couldn't use it as a traditional upper deck, what we had was a single-level booth with really high walls.

Working nonstop for three days, the workers completed the structure, and my manager did the final walk-through just two hours before the show started. It was definitely a high-fiving moment, and I couldn't believe we pulled it off.

It was a doozy of a test for our new exhibit house, and I was eternally grateful we'd chosen it for this show. No matter how good I am at my job, it was the company's expertise and connections that saved us, and it taught me that sometimes it's not what you know, it's who you know.

— Bob Tibbett, CTSM, senior marketing manager/events, ForeScout Technologies Inc., Campbell, CA