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Trade Show Survival

Ray Schultz October 9th, 2008

With due respect to Ruth Stevens, there are a couple of things that she failed to mention in her first-rate book on B2B conferences—“Trade Show and Event Marketing” (Thomson, 2005). It may be helpful to review them as we head to the DMA fall event in Vegas.

The first is don’t get drunk and throw up on a client. A certain amount of substance abuse is permissible, but you have to be professional about it. Don’t denounce the presidential candidates, don’t paw anyone and make sure you show up at the booth in the morning, no matter how hung over you are.

Second, exercise moderation when stealing booty. It is unseemly to walk out of the exhibit hall bearing two full shopping bags of Harte-Hanks teddy bars, MeritDirect pens, Acxiom chocolates, Alterian ROI calculators and InfoGroup scratch pads (or whatever the hell they are offering). How many bean bags does your kid need, anyway?

The third rule: Gamble all you want. But stay within budget, and don’t get any ideas about making your fourth-quarter postage.

Next, run if a scalper tries to sell you tickets to Siegfried and Roy. And never, ever eat the dim sum in the exhibit hall.

Some of these rules can be bent, but there are two that I would never violate under any circumstances. I learned them in 25 years of freeloading at parties and hospitality suites.

1. Never get on a boat.

2. Never get on a bus.

Why boats? Because four hours is too long to be trapped with postal sortation equipment salesman. I never go anywhere that I can’t get back from on my own. And I’m a poor swimmer.

But busses are worse because most of us ride them from the hotels to the exhibit hall. We forget how insidious they are.

I once took one in Hawaii to a so-called luau. We rode for hours on a state highway—I didn’t know Oahu was that wide—and found ourselves in a park next to a gravel pit. We sat at picnic tables, eating cold food from aluminum trays while assorted DMers danced the hula on stage (it was the only way to stay warm).

As the old prizefight manager said, “Out of town is a nice place.”