[BNM] Surviving trade expos - tips please!

[Jamie Campbell]

Sorry Jay this is a long and rambling summary of 10 years of trotting
around the worlds exhibition halls, I've included some things that may
not be germane to your circumstances but may be in others.


Though BETT is in Olympia and close to High St Ken bear in mind that any
trip to get something you forgot soaks up time, so aim to take
everything you'll need. It's far worse in most halls which are, more
often than not, in the arse-hole end of nowhere.

Exhibition halls charge a king's ransom for anything. For example if you
can get it to the venue easily it's probably cheaper to buy your
furniture from Ikea than rent it. Also, in this country, you may well
find a TMobile 3G modem cheaper than the venue connection.

For city centre venues including Earls Court Olympia and other such
delights as the Palais De Congress in Paris the queues for the get-in
and get-out are horrendous. So if you are using a van or car and have
too much stuff to tip onto the pavement get there with time to spare and
get someone to get into the queue early (you'll lose them for most of
the last day)

Wear comfortable shoes, it takes about 3 shows in quick succession
before your feet get used to standing for 3 to 4 days on the trot and
that's with comfortable shoes. Gawd knows how anyone survives in high
heels.

If you are flying anywhere be careful with budget airlines. Aside from
the well known issues they have hard limits on hold baggage. Easyjet
fluctuate between 40 and 60 kilos (ring before hand to check) with no
hope of more since they offer much of the hold to couriers. BA will take
everything if each item is below 32Kg and they have space (I've seen 800
kilos go excess on a BA flight). To this end if you ever decide to fly
to a venue with a pop-up stand, literature and all your ordinary luggage
you may find BA cheaper and less hassle.

Try to book hotels that have 24 hour room service, if you find you end
up working late at least you can get something to eat. However this
seems to be practically impossible in London at a reasonable price.

Stuff that you'll need ->

A trolley, preferably fold-able for carting literature and give-aways
around, also a knife to open same (guard both with your life)
Clothes you don't care about for get-in and get-out

Stationery:
Sellotape
Scissors
Paper
Marker pens
Pens
Sticky labels (if abroad take A4 ones as well, for courier labels)
Exhibition quality Velcro, it has amazing properties of adhesion, but
costs a small fortune, about £50 for a pair of rolls (hooks and loops)
so find some off-cuts if possible.

Cleaning materials:
A cloth
Some kind of mild glass cleaning spray
A tin of lighter fluid

If you do techie stuff:
Screwdrivers and pliers (always useful)
Gaffer tape, the proper stuff not whatever B&Q sell, it leaves glue
everywhere. MMP will sell you a roll for about a fiver if you pop round
http://www.mmpproductions.co.uk
Mains extensions, you never have enough.
Make sure you've some space on a USB pen drive plus a handful of CDs
(you can wrap them in cling film if space is an issue)
Don't for get your laptop locks and lock away or remove all steal-able
items each night.   
If you ever fly to a show and are taking bespoke software, videos or
presentations make two copies, one for your hold bag and one for your
hand baggage.
Never trust baggage handlers, ever 

Head pills for your hangover
And finally, beer tokens



On Wed, 2008-01-02 at 16:48 +0000, Dave Phelan wrote:
> Jay
> 
> On Jan 2, 2008 4:20 PM, Jay Caines-Gooby <jay at gooby.org> wrote:
> > So we're off to BETT for 4 days next week. I've only ever been to one
> > other expo on a stand before, and I know that I don't want to repeat
> > that particular experience, so any survival tips for stuff we should
> > take along?
> 
> Don't forget some comfortable shoes and baggy pants, so you can slip
> off the high heels and tight skirt when your shift is over...
> :-)
> 
> Good luck. I've only done it once myself.
> My best advice: never do it again.
> 
> Dave Ph
> 
> -- 
>  Dave Phelan CCIE#3590   skype:davephelan/0208 1445720
>  dave.phelan at gmail.com                  http://www.davephelan.org
>  "The best wifi is just that: free wifi throughout, no codes, no charges."
>                       - William Gibson, http://tinyurl.com/2u4873