The Biggest Headaches You’ll Face Booth Planning

My team is currently preparing for one of the largest shows in the world coming up in January: CES (Consumer Electronics Show). Beyond the logistics that often become frustrating including arbitrary and confusing deadlines for things like carpet the decisions on what to exhibit become major headaches. 

Sorry, what’s going on the banner? 

Being that I work for a small startup I work closely with all teams to ensure the overall company vision is met. When it comes to designing a banner this becomes a whole process of its own. Should it be detailed? Should it show the technical workings? Should it be flashy? As you can tell none of these really fit together in one banner. So goes the long boardroom meetings debating between sales, marketing, development, and management what should be said and what should be displayed. 

Hold up it’s in January?

Mid-January in Canada is best described as a complete nightmare and for a type A personality like myself the flight delays paired with set deadlines for booth set up turn to panic quickly. Will we get there on time? Even if we are did our booth elements ship on time? The key to it all comes down to flying in early and trying to let go of a little control (still easier said than done).

Who the hell is calling me?

With CES as one of the largest consumer shows in the world you can imagine that the scams are real and as the exhibitor coordinator you become the liaison for numerous calls and emails offering services at outrageous prices. No Rick, I don’t need your team to professionally record our booth for 4 days. An email here or a phone call there would be reasonable but ten calls in one morning pushes me just ever so slightly to the edge. Thankfully there is caller ID and a Junk folder for this exact reason. 

But really it’s not that bad.

I’ve planned and attended numerous conferences and events at almost every role I’ve taken on. It’s something I live for. The high visibility of the success really creates a new level of stress. It is the perfect gig for a perfectionist. There’s nothing I love more than meeting new people and explaining a complex product or service better than I ever could have known I could. And really above all you just need to be organized and the rest isn’t up to you. Somethings are out of your control and that’s just how it goes. When things get too much just remember that taking care of yourself is priority number one and when you feel good you would incredibly. But just incase you need a hand here are some tips to relax when work gets to that ultimate high point. 

If you’re heading to CES in January and want to meet up or are interested in hearing more about my journey along the way or even at the event reach out and lets talk! I’m always interested in seeing how other marketers deal with booth planning challenges.