Throughout my career in the moving industry, I have been to plenty of trade shows such as the Latin American & Caribbean Movers Association or known as LACMA and the International Association of Movers (IAM) conventions just to name a few.
Every exhibitor that attend these shows and others have to ship their exhibits to the site or convention. They can ship it directly to the trade show site which is usually a hotel or a convention center or an advanced warehouse. The process of getting your booth, supplies and materials from point A to point B seems fairly simple but it’s actually more complex than you realize.
Often referred to in trade show circles as “material handling and drayage,” this highly coordinated effort that ensures the movement of your exhibit items between moving truck and your booth space involves an extraordinary amount of planning and preparation.
Exhibitors usually have a decision to make regarding the move to the trade show. Ship it directly to the show site or move it to a warehouse. My opinion is to have your exhibit always moved to the warehouse, here’s why:
• If you ship it to the convention center or hotel, there’s probably another show or possibly several of them in which your shipment could potentially get lost. In addition, there could be confusion as to which dock to offload your freight to which could lead to a delayed delivery.
• By shipping it to an advanced warehouse, your materials will be ready and waiting for you as soon as your allotted time for the exhibit set up begins.
• It provides peace-of-mind and one less thing to worry about when your exhibit booth and materials arrive at the warehouse. Less confusion, because if you are exhibiting in an international trade show like I have been doing, there’s less chance of it being delayed or something that goes wrong if it’s shipped to a hotel or convention center.
Take the headaches out of an international trade show and ship your exhibit to an advanced warehouse so you can check one more thing off your to-do-list.
Safe moving!