This year, 2022, has probably been the most challenging many in the trade show and event worlds have faced. There have been shortages of materials and labor, increased costs, ROI uncertainty and challenges managing expectations.

And speaking of cost increases, UPS is raising rates about 7%. This follows unprecedented increases over the last year in regular OTR freight and material handling. And don’t get me started on material handling.

There never will be a shortage of advice, paid or free, when it comes to managing a successful trade show program. Go ahead, Google it or go to your choice of exhibit industry social media groups.

They are all there: ship to advance warehouse, take advantage of discount deadlines for ordering show services and audio visual, get the better carpet padding, bring extra extension cords, wear comfortable shoes, blah, blah, blah, and on and on.

Water skiing.

Holding onto a big, half-filled, water balloon.

Herding cats.

These are examples of tasks that would seem fairly easy once they’ve  been successfully completed a few times. The reality though, is just when you think you’ve mastered them....Splat! You fly off your skis and face plant into your own wake.

Trade show planning should be added to this list.

“Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face,” was a phrase I heard my grandmother say from time to time. It’s not used too often these days but it literally means, don’t go ahead with an action that could make things worse for you farther down the road. This is especially true if the action is done as a quick reaction, out of anger or not thought through.

I wanted to say this to a long-time customer the other day. In 2015, they plan on pulling out of three of the major shows they do annually because, “the CFO doesn’t like the fact that material handling costs are as high as they are and are not something that can be predicted and budgeted for,” (sic).

I recently met with a new client who was just hired by her company, and one of her job functions is to handle their modest trade show program. She is new to the trade show world and was very open to any advice I could offer.

We talked for awhile about typical issues such as the advantages of shipping “advance” to the warehouse versus shipping “direct” to the show site, consolidating shipments to save on material handling, and the pros and cons of renting a monitor as compared to owning and shipping their own.