Your next trade show – You're going to make mistakes and why that's a good thing

historical anatomies, National Library of Medicine, NIH

The physicist Niels Bohr defined an expert as “a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field.”

In my all-time favorite book (that’s where I got that nifty quote), How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer, Jonah walks us through how our brain learns from our mistakes.  He says, “Mistakes aren’t things to be discouraged.  On the contrary, they should be cultivated and carefully investigated.”

So here’s the thing.  Trade shows are these little microcosms of chaos.  They are meticulously planned events where anything and everything that can go wrong eventually will.  Half the time these things are out of your control (truck containing booth gets stuck in snow storm in rocky mountains) and the other half of the time they would have been within your control if you had known it was possible (truck containing booth gets stuck in snow storm in rocky mountains).

Exhibitor magazine has a wonderful column called Plan B in which exhibit managers get to tell their horror stories and how they survived the unexpected.  Contributors to this column are our unsung heroes of the industry.  They provide us with a bevy of mistakes we can learn from and never make ourselves.  Yes you can learn from others but there’s nothing like learning from your own mistakes…little calamities that help create deeper grooves in our brains so we never ever ever forget them.  And never ever ever make them again.

I made a doozie of a mistake my first time out.  I was over-seeing the set-up of a new client’s booth.  I was there to make sure everyone did what they were supposed to do during set-up.  I was to be their eyes and ears on the floor, then a couple hours before the show they would swoop in and run the booth.  It was about a 3600 square foot booth, a brand new design they had never used before.

The installation and dismantle company they had setting up the booth was one they always use.  Therefore I assumed reading blue prints was not my job.  Everything got set up but a couple pieces were left over, they just didn’t seem to fit.  The foreman told me they were shipped by mistake and part of another property.  Again, I decided it was easier to go with this explanation than question it.  Then the graphics were put in place but nothing seemed to fit.  We managed to get thing in their proper place with a bit of double sided tape and Velcro.

Two hours before the show opened the brand manager walked in, took one look at the booth and asked why it was set up backwards.  Whoops!  Guess what?  Now I know how to read blue prints and I question everything until I’m satisfied with the answer.  I will probably never ever set up a booth backwards again.

What I’m trying to say is, mistakes are unavoidable.  You and others are going to make them.  What is important is how you react to them.  What you cannot do is spend valuable time trying to find someone to blame.  Your job is to find a solution and find one quick.  Do not even participate in the blame game.  If your boss is asking you who is at fault (and let’s say it’s NOT you) tell him what is important is that you find a way to fix the problem and you need to focus on that.  Ask them to postpone finding out who is responsible to the post-con meeting.

Note:  A post-conference meeting is where you analyze what went right and what went wrong.  A post con meeting is where you cultivate and carefully investigate those mistakes.

A good exhibit manager can think on his or her feet.  A good exhibit manager immediately starts making a list of possible solutions in their head and evaluates each one and chooses the best.  A good exhibit manager asks for help when they need it.  A great exhibit manager has a network they have built up and then can turn to for help when the situation calls for it.

I’m not sure I can call myself an expert at trade shows yet because I’m sure there are still a few mistakes out there waiting to be made, but I’m getting pretty damn close.  I’d love to hear some of your stories, things that have gone wrong and how you fixed them so we can all learn from each other.  Please add them in the comments below.

If you are looking for someone to help you with your company’s trade show marketing plan, give me a call.  I cannot guarantee things will run perfectly smoothly, no one can.  But what I can guarantee is that we know how to deal with the unexpected and we have an amazing network of people who have our back and therefore yours.

(Thank you Dana for copy editing…just goes to show you, Dana at the Expo Group has my back!)