Ultimate Exhibition Guide 7 – Logistics

Points to Consider

Whether you’re an international company flying in staff from all parts of the globe, a national company that’s bringing people from different branches, or a small company doing your first ever local exhibition, the principles are the same:

• Look at your travel and find ways to do things as efficiently as possible, whether that’s taking a plane, because you’ll save time and get there quicker, or planning to travel together to cut down on the number of journeys.
• Send your stand and your marketing materials to the venue in plenty of time for the exhibition, and double check where they need to go. There might be a specific bay or back entrance for goods rather than sending them to the main entrance.
• Label everything clearly so you don’t need to open it to see what’s in it, and add your company name so things don’t get lost.
• You might feel like you’re engaging in a game of Tetris, but if you can pack efficiently, taking care with more fragile items, you may get away with only one journey instead of several to deliver your items.
• See if your printers and exhibition stand designers can send your items directly to the venue, instead of to you. It’s one less journey and one less expense.
• Plan for any contractors and specialists, such as VR technicians, to arrive in plenty of time to set up, and give them all the information they need in advance.
• Work off a checklist so you can be sure you haven’t forgotten anything.
• Make sure everyone has the phone number of the main organiser, the venue, and of anyone they need to reach, just in case there’s a problem with travel.

Whatever your company size, you’ll have to balance your budget for the event, and you’ll need to weigh where it’s worth spending extra money to increase efficiency (such as faster travel because your staff will be fresher), and where you’d rather save money.

Make savings where you can

Travel can be saved on with early bird bookings and slower journeys with more changes, but you’ve got to consider the time involved or it could be false economy. Your CEO, for example, is likely to be paid a high hourly wage, so the cheapest thing to do – taking into account their salary for the time spent, the value of the work they could be doing instead of travelling, and the cost of the ticket – is to pay for a flight, not put him or her on a cross country train journey that stops at every halt.

As long as you plan things properly and consider your budget, aiming to have things sorted well in advance, rather than at the last minute, you should have a smooth trip to the exhibition venue with everything in place when you arrive.