EMT #47 with Bill Watson - Navigating Labor Rules & Union Realities at U.S. Trade Shows

Episode 47 of Event Marketer’s Toolbox is a clear, practical breakdown of what it really takes to exhibit across the U.S. trade show landscape. Guest Bill Watson, who leads labor operations for Lime IND, joins hosts Chris Dunn and Dana Esposito to unpack the biggest challenges exhibitors face: labor rules, union jurisdictions, venue restrictions, scheduling pressures, and the realities behind rising costs.

Many exhibitors assume labor works the same everywhere—but Bill explains why every city operates uniquely. From Chicago’s strict electrical rules (rooted in historical incidents) to New York’s high-pressure scheduling and Las Vegas’s scale, this episode helps listeners understand why the same booth can behave completely differently from city to city.

You'll hear why expectations often collide with reality, why planning “flow” and buffer time is non-negotiable, and how late decisions trigger cascading delays and extra costs. The hosts and guest also explore how design decisions directly impact budgets, why multi-city programs require adaptive strategies, and what questions every exhibitor should ask long before they arrive on site.

Why labor rules vary from city to city
Bill explains how historical incidents, unions, and venue structures shape the wildly different rules exhibitors face.

The hidden impact of scheduling and buffer time
Late decisions and tight timelines trigger cascading delays, cost spikes, and operational chaos.

Exhibitor misconceptions vs. real on-site conditions
What exhibitors assume will happen doesn’t always align with how labor is scheduled, dispatched, or allowed to work.

How design choices affect labor and cost
Materials, height, weight, and complexity change the labor story dramatically—especially in union-heavy cities.

Regional cost realities across North America
Chicago, New York, Vegas, Orlando—they all operate differently, and planning without this knowledge is costly.

Why choosing the right partner changes everything
A partner who understands multi-city programs can help avoid blown budgets and on-site surprises.

Whether you're new to trade shows or managing a full North American program, this episode offers practical, experience-driven guidance you can apply immediately.

Exhibiting across North America isn’t complicated because exhibitors lack skill—it’s complicated because every venue has its own history, rules, and pace. Understanding those differences is the key to avoiding surprises, protecting budgets, and delivering a smooth on-site experience. Bill’s insights give marketers and exhibit managers the clarity they need to plan smarter and show up more prepared.

👉🏼 Join us for more insightful discussions like this by tuning into 'Event Marketer's Toolbox,' where industry leaders share the tools, tactics, and trends driving success in the event world.

This Show is sponsored by Blue Hive

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Transcript

0:00:00

(Chris Dunn)

Hey, hello, and welcome. This is Chris Dunn. I'm with Blue Hive, and you are on the Toolbox, the Event Marketers Toolbox, that is. Hey, I got some friends with me. We all actually happen to work for the same company this time, but we're going to have a great conversation, not only with Dana, who is a regular co -host, but also with our friend, Bill Watson, who handles our labor for Lyme Labor. But I'm going to kick it over to Dana. 

0:00:21

(Chris Dunn)

Dana, how are you? How you been? And what are you doing here? 

0:00:25

(Dana Esposito)

I'm doing well. It's bananas busy, which is a great problem to have. Um, but yeah, I'm Dana Esposito. I've been in the industry about 30 years, both, uh, sort of beginning and exhibit design and also, um, corporate leadership and strategy. And today we're talking to Bill, who's one of my favorite people because, you know, I can design something or any one of my, um, coworkers can design something amazing. If the rest of our team members don't do all the great things that they do, it doesn't matter. 

0:00:51

(Dana Esposito)

So Bill's one of those people who make it all happen on the show. site on the show floor with all the rules and craziness that happens on the show floor. It's like the Wild West sometimes. So Bill, we're so happy to have you. Can you please give us a little introduction about yourself and how you came to be doing what you're doing? 

0:01:08

(Bill Watson)

Hi, thanks guys. Dan and Chris, thanks for having me on here. This is a pleasure. So my background is, is primarily in labor management on the show floor. I kind of have a unique insight into this since you know I've been doing this for, Dana says 30, I've been more than that. More than her, less than 40. 

0:01:29

(Bill Watson)

But anyways, a long time. But I started my career, my first 10 years of my career was on the client side. So I was facing these things and then came over onto the service side of it. So I have a good eyeball on what both sides are struggling with or looking for solutions to. So it's always been kind of served me pretty well, especially most of it is on the service side here now, but it's kind of, it's unique anyways. 

0:01:55

(Dana Esposito)

Yeah, and I never know where you are in the world because you and your team members are traveling all the time. time. But I, I got kind of a kick out of knowing that, um, when I first met you used to be the city manager for Boston. 

0:02:07

(Bill Watson)

Yes. I, I, I, I, I work for Integrate. A lot of people have heard of Integrate, the largest labor company in the, in the United States. So I, I, I had a multitude of roles with them over, over the period of about 24 years. Um, but, uh, about almost 18 years of it was, was running Boston, which is, a pretty tough union city, and with regulations and stuff, if you're, you know, if you're taking a look at cities that are interesting to work for. But it's, it's a, that's, that's a, that's a, that's a pretty strong union city. 

0:02:39

(Bill Watson)

And it has its own set of rules. But like anything else, like anything, any other city we're going to talk about, it's, it's, everyone is unique. So it's, it's, Usually a confusing thing to customers that don't understand why you go to a show in Boston, it's going to be different than going to a show in Chicago or going to a show in Atlanta or any place. The rules are different, but you know, you're still trying to accomplish the same thing. 

0:03:03

(Dana Esposito)

Yeah. 

0:03:04

(Speaker 18)

I just heard that the BCEC was renamed the Menino Center. 

0:03:08

(Bill Watson)

Yeah. Yeah. It was a tough. whenever we're looking at it, BCEC was the Boston Exhibition and Convention Center, which was a mouthful. The Menino Center is, well, doesn't make it necessarily easier, but it's, I understand why they did that. 

0:03:22

(Dana Esposito)

And it's a nice, nice tribute to Tom Menino, who was a, you know - We know him as Mumble Menino, so we can actually say Menino. Just mumble it, just mumble it. 

0:03:31

(Chris Dunn)

It's a good tribute to him. Alright, well, hey, before we dive into our meat and potatoes part of the conversation, just a little bit about, about our sponsors and so forth. Also, this is a live show, we're building a community here on the toolbox. We invite you in all of you event professionals out there whether your trade show side or corporate events or festivals or brand activations, whatever it is. you're welcome. 

0:03:56

(Speaker 17)

Please comment in the chat, let us know. 

0:04:00

(Chris Dunn)

Menino. So, so I'm seeing the chat right here and our friend, uh, wanna say Menino is also a Spanish or Portuguese word. And she also says that, that, uh, Dana, your hair looks like fire today. So you're awesome. She said amazing. Actually. 

0:04:13

(Chris Dunn)

Um, I use the word fire. Um, can't disagree. 

0:04:16

(Speaker 14)

Bill, you too, your hair looks like snow. 

0:04:20

(Speaker 16)

It's a little snowy. 

0:04:21

(Chris Dunn)

Well, you're in New Hampshire. It's cold up there. Um, all right. So again, I'm Chris Dunn, Blue Hive. I'm, uh, 20 years of Blue Hive, 30 years in the industry as well. Yes, blue has one of our sponsors. 

0:04:33

(Chris Dunn)

So, I just mentioned right blue has about 20 years old we're coming up, we're going to be 21 in in January. And why do people care they don't really care that we're 21 years old. We have all that experience. That's a lot of shows. That's a lot of people who have an incredible depth of experience. And Bill and I talk about this a lot on the trade show floor is having deep resources and having experiences such that when some shit goes sideways, you're like, you know what? 

0:05:02

(Chris Dunn)

I've seen this before. And you want people like that around you, people who have done it before, who have seen it before. Blue Hive's a creative group. We are, I think, you know, creative is right at the top of the list. We're great at our customer service, the account management team, and the forward -facing people that take care of our clients are second to none. And, you know, at the end of the day, we remain flexible, and we, you know, are, I think, reasonably easy to work with. 

0:05:32

(Chris Dunn)

We, we want to kind of make things work. Some, some small boutique companies are great, they're super creative, but they don't have the depth of resources to get you everything you need. Then there's the giant companies where you're just a number. You know, so finding the happy medium in between, that's kind of where Bluehive lives and thrives. In addition to that, we are also sponsored by Fist Bump. 

0:05:52

(Chris Dunn)

Fist Bump is an agency, a media agency, and they help us run this podcast. The relationship started a couple of years ago. Initially, it was really more about myself and the founder of Fist Bump working through some personal branding stuff, spilled into how can we help Blue Hive and the brand awareness there. and ultimately led us to, about this time last year, we agreed to do a podcast. So here we are, we're doing this live show. It's obviously recorded. 

0:06:21

(Chris Dunn)

Fist Bump does all of the heavy lifting pieces that make it work. They serve us up all this content in so many different ways. We can use it to market, we can use it to be thought leaders, we can use it to basically get our message out. So if you're looking for folks who, who can help you kind of go to that next level with regards to your, your presence online and your thought leadership and putting together a show like this, these guys are fantastic. 

0:06:46

(Dana Esposito)

So having said all that, I'm going to kick it back to Dana and we're going to get into the conversation. Yeah. So, so, you know, I know Chris's intention when this whole podcast was born is really to help, you know, help educate and deliver, um, you know, education and cross pollinate, uh, different people from different, um, I mean, it's all industry related, but basically whether you're a new trade show and event marketer, or you're a veteran, a lot of things change as time moves on. And we've even seen some things like that with, with labor and on show site. Um, so. These podcasts, not only are they live, they're available later on, on YouTube and things like that. 

0:07:23

(Chris Dunn)

So a good reference and resource for continuing education for trade show and vet marketers. 

0:07:30

(Speaker 15)

We should actually work on getting your, your CTSM credits through, uh, through the toolbox. 

0:07:36

(Dana Esposito)

Yeah. Um, so yeah, we'll talk, I know a guy, um, um, we'll talk to, uh, let's talk about the, of US trade show labor. 

0:07:48

(Bill Watson)

So we'll get started talking a little bit about, Bill, why do labor rules differ so drastically from city to city? Well, the biggest thing is, is because there is no universal set of rules and jurisdictions for trade shows, okay? So most of the venues in the country are usually state owned, and they've long before any of us got involved in trade shows, negotiated and agreed upon who is going to have jurisdiction to do what work in their particular venue. So it varies completely how the local places wanted to be able to take trade shows. Chicago is a good example. I always use this as an example. 

0:08:32

(Bill Watson)

Everybody who's been to Chicago and does a job at specifically McCormick Place, that there's so many different layers of who does what. But specifically, it seems to be the hardest place in the world to get anything done electrically. They set the bar for rules when it comes to that. But they're also the one that in the early 60s, on a day before the opening of the hardware show, McCormick Place burned to the ground because of an electrical issue that happened on the show floor. So it wiped out And, you know, the venue, which was one of the hottest ones, you know, from McCormick Place was where the large shows went. They were never going to have that happen again. 

0:09:12

(Bill Watson)

So it's, and it is spilled out across the country in different places, but never any, any more than there. So, so it's, different circumstances happen in different places that dictate how they do things. It, it almost doesn't matter. Because somewhere along the way, someone is going to do some aspect of the job you're trying to get accomplished there. The key is to just understand who it is and how to build that relationship. flow of your job. 

0:09:41

(Bill Watson)

Because every setup you've got, whether it's a 10 by 10 or a 50 by 50, has got a flow to the job. So the most important thing you can do, no matter where, is understand what has to happen with the flow, what happens first, who's going to be doing that for you, given whatever city you're going to be in, and then making sure that you've got that built into your timeline with buffer. Because no matter what, you have to recognize at times that you're going to be at a show, and it may be a small show with 20 exhibitors. You may be at a big venue that's got 3 ,000 exhibitors. Everybody's trying to get that hanging sign done at 8 o 'clock in the morning on Tuesday. So it's just not going to happen. 

0:10:22

(Bill Watson)

So you have to be able to understand how you can build your timeline with realistic timing that gives you buffer to deal with something that's going to go wrong. 

0:10:32

(Dana Esposito)

You're basically working in the most imperfect world possible, is the trade show floor. It's organized chaos, and there's so much that the exhibitors and their exhibit providers are not in control of. 

0:10:46

(Bill Watson)

So it's like you really have to control as much as you're allowed to, to keep it smooth. And again, it's Everybody has got to bring in manpower to do something, from Teamsters who are unloading your freight, to rigging people that are dealing with getting your sign in the air, to electricians that are getting the stuff on the floor. So everybody's putting service orders in. Everybody's putting stuff into the system. And they're trying to make sure they have enough manpower. And now, post -COVID, we're still dealing with not everybody in the service industry in the trade show world got everybody back. 

0:11:22

(Bill Watson)

Just like any other part of the industry, but they just don't have enough personnel sometimes. And, you know, I don't mean to digress here a little bit, but if you get into some of the larger cities like Las Vegas, who have got so many different vendors. 

0:11:35

(Dana Esposito)

going on at the same time, not just the convention center, but hotels, and you know, everybody's trying to fill labor calls, everyone's trying to give guys to get in there and get the job done, and you're showing up going, why am I waiting on this? Right, and even if they have the bodies, some of them are still, they're more junior in their careers, so they might take a little longer than they would have if there was a more experienced, but there aren't as much experienced people yet. 

0:12:01

(Bill Watson)

We kind of have to let them get some time to ramp up. So, so it, so, so yeah, so not only is every city going to have different people who are doing this, but they're all, they are all fighting, making sure they've got enough personnel to be able to deal with this. Because no matter what, there's always this feeling like it's an adversarial ground it absolutely is not everybody wants to get this show up everybody wants to be able to have a put a good show on they want exhibitors to have a good experience they they do want that but they everybody gets frustrated and you know anytime anybody's walked up to a you know the service desk and. gotten in line to go up and complain about something, you know, you're just another one keep coming up. They're trying to do the best that they can. Really, they're looking for you to have as much patience as possible. 

0:12:46

(Bill Watson)

And probably 30 to 40 % of the exhibitors that go in there go in with no plan. They're just kind of going in thinking that I ordered my electrician and it's not there. How come I can't get them? So those who have a better plan are way off better. 

0:13:00

(Dana Esposito)

And they're looked upon as someone who's got their act together and they're going to get more sympathy and leads to getting a little better service. 

0:13:09

(Bill Watson)

What have you seen are some of the misconceptions that exhibitors bring to the show floor? Well, timing. Timing is the biggest thing. They just think that I ordered this. And again, it's gotten to the point now where you go online and you can order stuff online and you think you're going to get this done on a particular time. and you don't and they really just don't understand why. 

0:13:32

(Bill Watson)

But like I said before, it's like, well, you're part of so many different people have done this, that they've asked for it, you've ordered it on the day, you know, one of the, one of the, one of the, one of the, one of the, one of the, one of the, one of the, one of the, Back to misconceptions, one of the things is like, if you go in and you've got a 20 by 20 exhibit, and you've got the hanging sign, you've got a little complex electrical maybe, and you've got some freight, and you just say, order, yeah, I want my hanging sign down at eight o 'clock, I'm bringing my labor in at eight o 'clock, everybody should be able to get in there, shouldn't take very long to put that hanging sign up, we should be able to work around it, and then the whole thing goes to hell. Because first of all, you came in three days after the show moved in, and the aisles are full of freight. because other people moved their freight in, and they can't get the boom lift over to you. So they're doing the best they can to get to you. But you've predicated your plan on being able to have it be done, boom, boom, boom, and all of a sudden, your plan just went to hell. So what we always tell everybody is, again, take a look at things. 

0:14:27

(Bill Watson)

There's certain things that you can do to try to avoid that, which is take a look at how much can you send to advance? I always tell everybody all the time, get your hanging sign if you've got one or your flooring sent to advance because that tends to get on the floor sooner. And then by getting it on there sooner, you have a better chance of getting involved with your rigging, maybe getting done sooner, because the riggers want to put up every hanging sign they can before it gets too fulled up. They're trying to be efficient, too. So it's, it's, it just comes down to, it's like, if you work with them, thinking about their problems and being able to deliver, they'll see that and you'll be able to do it. Because a lot of the places, if you've got a fairly simple sign, it's just, certain, you know, got to center it in the booth, bottom of the sign to a certain height, they'll get it right. 

0:15:11

(Bill Watson)

If you've got some complexities to it with the angle or something like that, have somebody supervise it. But go in as early as you can to be able to figure out when they're going to be able to work on that. Right. And one of the things that you can do that with is have a conversation with the riggers. You know, it's one of the things I'll circle back to around later, but there's there's there's there's something to be said about it takes a little time to figure out how to get through to it. But if you work with a company. 

0:15:34

(Bill Watson)

Ours, for an example, everyone should do this, is that we have relationships with the GCs in that particular city, and we can drill down to figure out who's handling that show, and who's the riggers who are going to be dealing with that, and just have a conversation saying, listen, when are you really going to start doing that? And they'll tell you. They'd be glad to do it. Again, most people don't think that they can even have a conversation with a GC before a show. That's not right. You absolutely have a conversation with them. 

0:16:02

(Bill Watson)

Now, it's not easy to just say, Hey, call up a general number and do it. 

0:16:04

(Chris Dunn)

You got it. There's a little work that goes through to do it, but that's, that's the best thing you can do. Yeah. We've got some very complex projects and, and by and large, the best things that we do is having those pre -planning meetings, just like you do with anybody else, whether it's in your organization, your vendor, whatnot, you know, reaching out to, um, you know, to, um, all of the different vendors, you know, and sometimes they fall under the exhibit hall. Sometimes they fall under, you know, Freeman or GS, whoever the GC is, but, you know, figure out, you know, how you get ahold of them, have the conversations with the rigors about the, about the, you know, the hanging, and it's going to be a little complex. Like we did, we did a great booth for one of our clients, Veg, we had like 18 different inflatable disco balls hanging off a truss. 

0:16:51

(Chris Dunn)

And it looked fantastic. But it was a conversation, because initially, they're seeing this drawing. They're like, what the hell are these things? How heavy are they? How big does this truss need to be? The motors? 

0:17:01

(Chris Dunn)

There's all these questions. So just like anything else, the more information you can deliver and talk to, ideally, the people who are going to hang it or the hall director, and fill them in and get everybody on the same page. Hey, I wanted to bring up a question. It was a good question from Rich Keefe, our friend from ICE 9. It's a little bit long here, but Juana, if you can bring this up, I'm going to do my best to read this out. 

0:17:26

(Chris Dunn)

But let's see. So union jurisdiction, AV vendors often need to involve both IBEW and IATSE, that's I -A -T -S -E, for projection and LED work. And both unions claim responsibility for that scope. 

0:17:41

(Bill Watson)

How should vendors navigate this overlap, especially when it increases costs for the end client? And I'm not sure if this falls into your exact wheelhouse. You're as good as anybody to bounce it off of. Again, jurisdiction changes in different places. The rule of thumb normally with having to get either stagehands or IOC or something like that involved is if your message rotates over multiple screens of something. If you're just putting up a TV monitor, it's going to be electricians. 

0:18:15

(Bill Watson)

It's going to be LED work. You're going to get Vegas is like that stage. You get stagehands. It's just part of the crew that works on putting it up. You just need to know your venues. In some places, we've seen in San Diego, if it's your stuff that gets sent in, you can do it yourself. 

0:18:37

(Bill Watson)

If it's something that you're renting from the show vendor, then you got to get electricians to help you. Vegas is, you know, mostly it's electricians are putting up monitors, unless you're at the Venetian. 

0:18:50

(Chris Dunn)

The Venetian just decided they didn't want to have to deal with that anymore. And they, they let you go ahead and put your monitors up there. So it's always the, you know, there's an exception to the rule, but it's just one of those things where you just got to figure out where you're going and what the rules are going to be for that particular show based on that venue, because it does vary in the cities. and you may find contradicting information in the showbook because they don't always get it right either. So sometimes it just takes some digging and some outreach. And listen, we've all been there. 

0:19:20

(Chris Dunn)

We've been frustrated in having conversations where you're getting two different answers from one group saying this and another group saying that. Just do the best you can. 

0:19:28

(Speaker 11)

You can continue to ask the questions. 

0:19:30

(Chris Dunn)

Ideally, again, you work with people who are familiar with the cities and they know the real deal right at the end of the day. That's an important piece. Yeah. Yeah. So, Bill, I'm going to kind of jump in here, our next set of questions, and I want to kind of drill down. You mentioned, you know, Boston is a unique animal. 

0:19:47

(Chris Dunn)

Obviously, Chicago, anybody who's done exhibiting has ended up in Chicago at some point or another. Interesting about the, you know, that fire that took down the original McCormick Place. And like you said, there's always a reason behind why these rules exist. In their particular case, they had a tremendous loss due to fire. So we're going to, hey, how do we make sure this never happens again? I know doing work out in California, earthquakes happen all the time, right? 

0:20:14

(Chris Dunn)

So you have to have engineering stamps for anything that goes high, or weight, or hanging stuff. So they have an earthquake problem. How do they figure it out? Well, they make sure that the structures that are built there are built to a certain code. Um, you know, so here's a conversation that we have with our our clients all the time Is it kind of comes back to budgeting? Hey, i've got a bunch of shows coming up. 

0:20:37

(Chris Dunn)

Um, uh, you know i'm going to do the very same booth in atlanta and then i'm going to go to new Orleans and then i'm going to go to san francisco and then i'm going to go to chicago Same booth 20 by 20. It's the same structure. Why does every single show? 

0:20:52

(Bill Watson)

city or hall, you know, why does each one of those shows cost me such a dramatically different amount of money? I know you mentioned it earlier, but let's talk a little bit about difference maybe between halls in the south and then halls either in the north or in the west. Ultimately, stronger union jurisdictions or something to that effect affects the costs, what people can do and all that stuff. Well, absolutely that. But it's also you look at the established trade show cities. 

0:21:25

(Bill Watson)

had a history of, have a longer history than some of the other ones. And they've, you know, they had to make a decision how they were going to handle it. Chicago is an obvious one, but they also have, you know, additional layers of things that they do in there, you know, when it comes to decorators and, you know, you know, getting your, getting your, the rules, the rules are just different every place you go. All right. So that's the, the answer to your question, that's why. And, But it goes back to what we talked about. 

0:21:56

(Bill Watson)

Somebody's always doing that. So as long as you understand that in Atlanta, for instance, you're really not going to have much, much of a struggle anyway. So a lot of your labor people do all of that work. Instead of, so if you, if you recognize who's going to be doing it, and you build that into your plan, then That's how you can control the cost. You can't help but understand why a carpenter costs more in New York or Chicago than a stage hand does in Southern Cal or in Dallas. So the regional costs are going to, you have to take that into consideration when you decide to go to a show that's moving around. 

0:22:40

(Bill Watson)

Chris, you and I, we do Rational at NRA, a big, big project. It's one of those ones that encompasses everything you think of. Well, it's there every year. And quite frankly, they don't even move their booth space as much at a show like that. So in Chicago, where you've got the floors broken up with electricians who have a blockhouse that handles every booth that's in a particular section of the floor, that's their domain. So you're not dealing with one desk that's 

0:23:05

(Bill Watson)

handling everybody on the floor, you got a little bit more control over a set, and you got people who are doing the same thing year after year, because it's floor managers there, and the guys who run the block houses are the same ones. So again, another city, you can just drill down better to control things, because they're used to doing these things. It's a show that's repeating there. Rational has just an enormous amount of different services that we do from the rigging to the electrical, the plumbing, and all of that. So it's, again, Once you can zero in on the show you're going to be doing and the city is going to be in, then it's up to you to start delving down into who's doing what in that city. So when, because a lot of times what you do is you'll try to base your budget based on the year before. 

0:23:49

(Bill Watson)

Well, it only took this long for me to get this done. So it should be that way moving to the next city. And it's not because it may not be the same type of a venue. It may not be the same size of a show, which has a huge impact on it because you're trying to, everybody's trying to get their freight delivered. Another thing you'll start to see now that we see more popping up now is people are going to targeted shows where they're free. They are dictating when you can deliver your stuff, even if it's sent to advance. 

0:24:16

(Bill Watson)

They're going to bring it in on this time because they know how they're dealing with the flow of a show coming in that has so much freight that's going to impact getting services done. Again, I'm not trying to dodge your question here, but the reality is it depends, is the answer. You know, but, but that's what it comes down to. 

0:24:40

(Speaker 7)

That's what we do constantly. 

0:24:41

(Bill Watson)

You know, we're, you know, our group is doing 300 plus shows a year and they're never the same except for a few of them. But it's, but even the ones that are still in the same venue and the same, same show that's repeating there, if you, if you change your design a little bit, it's going to make a difference for it. So you can't plan on last year's numbers or timing even. Right. So it's, it's, it's. important thing, I'm gonna keep saying this over and over here now, is that you have to have an individual plan for that show based on the information you're gathering from previous year's shows. 

0:25:11

(Chris Dunn)

But all you can do is take some of the assumptions in there and realistically go through and plan when you think you can get it done and then start making phone calls to see if your plan's gonna have holes in it. You can't just, Lock in, this is the date. This is our move in date. We're going to do it and start scheduling everything because then you'll be sitting around killing hours that you're not getting anything done. Right. And I think, you know, coming back to like, listen, this is some of the things that BlueHive does. 

0:25:40

(Chris Dunn)

We're good at it because we've got people who've been doing it for an awful long time. But there's plenty of other companies out there as well that are well -versed. They've got experienced people. They've got a depth of resources. And I think that's the biggest thing. It's like when you're picking a partner, don't just pick somebody who gives you a pretty picture or the lowest price. 

0:25:59

(Chris Dunn)

If it's important to you to be efficient and effective in moving your booth around. Once you build the pretty booth, then The relationship with your exhibit house and your labor team, it's all about execution and management of, you know, logistics, you're moving the booth from city to city, you're getting it set up, you're getting it torn down. That's a huge factor. And that's not really anything sexy that people look at when they're picking a partner. But it is so important, right? As you mentioned it earlier, Dana, we could design a total kick ass booth, it's beautiful, it's going to win awards. 

0:26:34

(Chris Dunn)

And if the setup experience and the ability to kind of move that booth from city to city, get it set up in an efficient manner, if we suck at that, The exhibitors experience is gonna also suck and they're gonna be pretty pissed, you know right out of the gate so You know just I guess I'm gonna take a step back Bill was a partner and a friend of Blue Hive for many, many years when he ran a degree in Boston. COVID happened, right? We, anybody in the events industries, our industry was shuttered. And there was so many questions like, what is this going to look like when it comes back? It will, but who knows when? 

0:27:13

(Chris Dunn)

And there's so many things that are outside of our control. And luckily, we've got great leadership at Blue Hive. And they, we sat down and we're like, What can we do to control the uncontrollables? Well, we can bring in labor. And this could have looked like a whole bunch of different things. But ultimately, at the end of the day, Bill, you came on full time. 

0:27:34

(Chris Dunn)

We started what is now called Lime IND. So this is the Labor Management Division of Blue Hive. 

0:27:42

(Speaker 14)

And ultimately you've, you know, since 2020, when you became a Blue Hive employee or, you know, and ultimately Lime is under that umbrella, but that's a piece that we chose to bring in house. 

0:27:52

(Chris Dunn)

And it really kind of changed how we work. And you guys just save our bacon on the show floor so many times, because again, there's, you're, you're the boots on the ground and you're the guys who are going to seeing it and getting it done and making sure, you know, if the hardware didn't make it there, you, you know, people who have the hardware. So really important again, you know, as part of that overall thing, right? If you're an event manager or somebody who is in charge of planning the trade shows for your company, the partnership that you choose is super important beyond just the pretty picture. All right. So before we kind of jump to a different topic, I just, I want to kind of circle back. 

0:28:36

(Chris Dunn)

We've got kind of, I always kind of cite like Atlanta, Orlando, New Orleans tend to kind of be some of the more cost -efficient places to do shows. They're big halls, they're used to doing that. I would say Orlando is like in the top three, right? We know that Vegas is kind of the capital of events as a whole. Chicago's, I think, actually got the most square footage or very close to it. And then Orlando is a close third. 

0:29:06

(Chris Dunn)

So there's an awful lot of shows that happen. and show up in those venues. And anybody who has done a show in Orlando and then maybe done the very next show in Chicago, as Bill mentioned, you look at the cost of living, like what's the cost of living in that area? Those are going to drive the rates that are connected to what the vendors charge. New York is a super expensive show. We're going to do NRF. 

0:29:31

(Chris Dunn)

And Sunday, the Sunday of the show open, In New York, that is the single most expensive hour on the trade show floor in the United States, as far as I know. It's a big fricking number. And how do we make sure that we're delivering value to our client is we understand what those limitations are and we try to work around them. We do a dark day. 

0:29:53

(Bill Watson)

We do dark days over the weekend. If we can build on Friday and finish on Monday and not have to build during double time, straight time, we're going to take advantage of those things. And again, it goes back to have a strategy, work with people who are familiar and just kind of don't go into it and just kind of throw stuff against the wall and see what sticks. Bill, on your end, this is a generic statement as it were, but tips for smoother on -site execution. Is there anything that I guess you would add that you hadn't said or that we haven't said yet? Like you were saying, it's like when we're building these things, when we build our estimates to be able to get it into the plan, the flow of how we're doing it, we try to take into consideration as much straight time as we can. 

0:30:44

(Bill Watson)

You can't always, you know, and with targeted shows, larger shows, you have no choice. So you get in the day, that's when you're going to be able to do it. But anything you can do in advance, you know, like I said earlier, get your hanging sign and flooring in there, making sure that you've, you've you're solid with your electrical plan, then you can get in and get some of that stuff done sooner. So if you do have to come in and work on the weekends, you're maximizing having everything ready to go. So you're starting, we always have a little rule of thumb. We try to do, if we're going to go over the weekend, we're going to make sure if there is time to be able to have flooring down anyways, so that you're getting in there at eight o 'clock and you're starting structure and, you know, and, and trying to, trying to get your way through it because, you know, Every job is going to take a certain number of man hours in order to get it up from start to finish. 

0:31:29

(Bill Watson)

So you try to move them around, you know, my, my director of operations and I, we, we go through this all the time, and I talk about how, how, how can we minimize the expensive times because not every city is a. You have either straight and overtime cities, a two -rate city or a three -rate city. So it's that third rate is the most expensive. When in doubt, you try to peel a little bit back from that and try to take advantage of a little bit somewhere else. But it matters if it fits into your flow. But anything in rule of thumb, when you take a look at Southern cities, if you look at the country in quadrants, the Northeast getting all the way to Chicago, always the most expensive places you're going to be. 

0:32:08

(Bill Watson)

The Boston, the Phillies, the New Yorks, the Chicago's. established trade show places. They're expensive places to live anyway. So like Chris, you said, that's going to drive that. But you take a look at that Southern quadrant. Once you get down below DC, DC is another one of the ones that's not overly, but it's also a fairly strict union city. 

0:32:30

(Bill Watson)

You get down into Atlanta down. New Orleans is a union city. but they're, they're pretty accommodating to being able to get stuff done. It's not as, you don't feel like you're as harshly ruled with that, you know, but really Atlanta, Atlanta is one of those ones where you can pretty much, you know, they have some union work workers in there because They had to, they had to, you know, find some way to be able to like draw, create a labor pool. They had some monster shows down there that it was just like, they just, nobody could get anybody down there. You know, you look back in the, in the past with super shows, you know, the, you know, the Sporting Goods Show was just enormous. 

0:33:14

(Bill Watson)

It was everywhere. And it was like, people came from all over the country to work there to try to get these shows in. You can't always count on that. So that, you know, but, but really you can do whatever you want down there. Orlando has got some rules that, you know, you know, same thing with the, you know, that's one of the places that, you know, labor puts together the hanging signs and then works with the, the people. Boston is the same way with that. 

0:33:36

(Bill Watson)

You know, there's certain things that, you know, contrary to normal rules that you just need to know who's doing what, as I keep coming back to. But, you know, and then you get into, you know, Vegas, who is obviously the, the, you know, the, the top top place for trade shows, because they talk about how much square footage they have in the Convention Center, but that doesn't even count all the other venues that are there. And there's always something going on in all these venues. All the major hotels went with some sort of show floor, not just ballrooms, but show floors. Mandalay Bay is probably the biggest of all of them, but everybody's got something that they can put a show in. So, it's, you know, You know, when you get into some of those places, you know, the pricing isn't bad. 

0:34:19

(Bill Watson)

Vegas really isn't too badly priced. Same thing with California. 

0:34:23

(Dana Esposito)

It's not too bad, you know, and so it's, you know, you just have to take a look at where you're going and recognize that, you know, there's clearly cities that are going to be more expensive and it's going to be. impact your budget right off the bat because you can add 20 to 30 % on whatever you paid that last time. So you better put that in your budget. If you know you're going there and you usually know a year before when you're putting through your budget, you cannot go with the same number. Not a chance. So Bill, on the exhibit provider side, like someone like Blue Hive, if the trade show event manager is working with someone like us, We try to always educate and train our own talent. 

0:35:02

(Dana Esposito)

So not only the creative team, do we try to educate the exhibit designers who are working on projects that are going to need to be set up. I also deal with students who are in college for exhibit design. And same thing, talk a lot about you may come up with amazingly beautiful booth or sign, but you need to take all these rules and regulations into consideration. Yeah, you don't want to show something to your client that they fall in love with it doesn't meet the rules and regulations criteria or Something else I've seen happen is I've seen an amazing booth Like so years ago at a different company. I started really working on a project We had done an exhibit we had done design someone else had done design and they had done a a really, we didn't end up winning it, the company I worked for at the time. And the design that won had an amazingly cool hanging sign, but it was like a huge structure, very complex. 

0:36:00

(Dana Esposito)

And I remember thinking, I remember thinking, Oh, when I first started in the industry and as a designer, I was very fortunate to get to go to, you know, shows on occasion, which is not easy to get a designer to a show and was there for, you know, set up. And cause that's just as important as when the show is open, because I could see. when labor crews were having difficulty with a property that was either overly designed maybe or wasn't engineered well. But either way, even if it was engineered excellent. if the design was almost like I'll just say it's too much for whatever purposes, because I don't have a visual for you. I could see it really murdering the labor setup hours. 

0:36:39

(Dana Esposito)

It's going to be an amazing design. But I knew that that design helped win that project. 

0:36:45

(Bill Watson)

But I also knew that that client, when they see that labor bill for the amount of additional rigging and additional time to hang that, they were never going to want to use that structure again, right? So as a designer, for me, I always tell that story to especially new designers or students. So I guess I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about how these labor rules can affect booth design decisions. I always make sure creatives know that. What would you want clients, what would you want trade show and event managers to know about how some of these rules affect the design decisions that they should be aware of? Right, so it's, you know, we've gone through this, Dan and I, we're, we'll get it designed that we need to create an estimate for and try to figure out how we're going to do it. 

0:37:31

(Bill Watson)

And we can't, for the life of us, understand how this is going to go together. So, you know, we have to drill back through to you to be able to see it. And as long as we can understand how, design often looks wonderful, like you said, but if we can't see physically how it's going to go together and then take a look at who's supposed to be doing what on the show floor and based on the timeline that we have in order to do that and how, because we always take a look at, nothing happens until you get whatever you've got in the air, okay? Because you can't work underneath it while they're putting it up. So, you know, if we can't feel that you can get it done in a certain time, then we're going to adjust our labor right off the bat. And that may push it into overtime. 

0:38:16

(Bill Watson)

So, because again, everything has got a certain amount of time to do. So if you've created something that is going to be really complex, then I'm going to break that hanging sign down into a separate thing completely. Even if we're not assembling it, we're just there trying to get it hung in the air. Because again, a lot of these cities, you know, we're really just there working with the people to try to maximize, you know, their education of what we're trying to do in order to get it up. 

0:38:44

(Dana Esposito)

But it's, you know, complex things like that need to be really broken out from the booth. I really feel, in order to be able to figure out what it's going to take to get that thing up all the time and where is it going to fit in conjunction with the rest of the booth that has to get built. Because again, the hanging sign stays up in the air longer than anything. 

0:39:06

(Bill Watson)

It's usually the first up and the last thing down. So if you can't get it up in a timely manner, it's going to affect everything you're doing. Yeah. So it may have been a beautiful, one of the reasons why a client purchased the exhibit using a complex sign, it was really beautiful, but it ended up being a nightmare. And their boss is like, why did this end up being so expensive? 

0:39:26

(Dana Esposito)

It's because those rigging costs and time were, ended up being, you know, they outweighed the beautifulness of that sign. Right. And again, it's like, no matter what, riggers are going to hang it. So you could have, you could have our people putting it together or whoever's putting it together. It doesn't really matter. Right. 

0:39:44

(Dana Esposito)

control over what they feel they need to put for manpower on to a hanging sign because it's up to them it's their liability to put it up in the air right so why is why does cost get out of control because they could finally get her hands on this thing and go yeah that was not what we thought And then you have no control over what they're going to start charging. That's where you can get in trouble. And another thing I always try to express to clients, and it could be a client that's gone to shows before, but maybe they've only gone to one show, maybe two, but now they're growing. let's say, and they're starting to go to a lot of shows and they have a more of a complex program where they're going to different sizes and then going to different cities. I always try to get ahead of that and make sure that they know so they don't get sort of bit in the butt by this later, which is if you're going to different shows, even if your booth is the same, get ahead of what those rules and regulations are, right? Because your booth might not need to change, but your booth may not work for those other shows because it won't meet the criteria for that other show's rules and regulations. 

0:40:49

(Dana Esposito)

And a good show that I use as an example a lot for this is NRF at Javits, because they have very complex rules. 

0:40:58

(Speaker 13)

And then there are some other shows where they maybe don't have a lot of complex rules, but they have a setback rule. 

0:41:04

(Bill Watson)

So all of a sudden, things that you used to be able to put right at the edge of your, say, carpet or flooring, now you have to set it back. Well, if that's attached to other things, especially it's not just like a loose demo station that stands on its own. It's going to affect the entire structure. So when, if a client is talking to their exhibit provider, whether it's Blue Hive or someone else like us, I always want them to know like, Look at your, don't look at just a show as a one -off, look at your whole program because look for a design that is strategic. It meets the brand and function and pricing and all the thing. But if we can know ahead of time, what shows you're going to and what the rules and regulations are, we can make sure you're not going to have problems down the road where all of a sudden this booth that was going to be like this little jackknife and do all these different things for you. 

0:41:52

(Bill Watson)

All of a sudden you go to one show and now it doesn't work and boom, now you got to find money that you didn't anticipate, you know? Right. And most of the exhibitors will do know that. They, you know, because they're, again, they're, they're picking the space. They're, they're, the salespeople who are selling them a space on the floor are going to make sure that they understand some of that too. So at least making them aware of it. 

0:42:13

(Bill Watson)

So it's a great question. to be able to talk to the clients that, you know, we know shows that are like that too. 

0:42:20

(Dana Esposito)

So that upfront conversation helps with being able to build it into the design, which then means that it gets transferred to the floor so that we're, we're setting it without, without any, downtime, I guess, to have somebody come by. 

0:42:37

(Speaker 12)

There's nothing worse than getting most of your job done, because these people are coming around constantly. 

0:42:42

(Bill Watson)

And it could be inches out of it, and they're going to make you do something to fix it. And we've taken stuff down off of a tower before, because it's like, they knew that this was a rule. And I had one example in a show in Boston where We got it at the show, but it had been in another city for another time. And they got the variance that last time with a guarantee that they would fix it, came back, and they gave them no guarantees. It was like, take it down. 

0:43:13

(Speaker 6)

We had to go back up and take this whole thing down because they were told. 

0:43:17

(Chris Dunn)

Yeah, you can't rely on a variance. Rules are rules, right? So it's like you just can't think that it was like, well, we got away with it once, we'll get away with it again. These people, the show management was actually more mad at them for taking advantage of them. So they were not giving them any, not even a little bit. They were just, stop, stop what you're doing, take it back down. 

0:43:36

(Chris Dunn)

During install. Yeah, yeah. Which is, I mean, you talk about, you know, throwing good money after bad, that's a bad thing. I want to ask another question that's totally in line with what we're talking about, but I want to take a brief respite on this because this just happened the other day. So this is related, right? We're working with a client, great client. 

0:43:56

(Chris Dunn)

They do a ton of shows. In the selection process, and again, I'm speaking to you, Mr. or Mrs. Trade Show Manager, primarily, when you're picking space, understand that an island and a peninsula and an inline, all very different things, come with different rules. So I think a lot of times exhibitors are looking at square footage. And here's the example. We've done islands. 

0:44:20

(Chris Dunn)

Let's say it's 20 by 20 islands. That's 400 square feet for this exhibitor. Now they're going to a show, and this particular show has some European similarities. In other words, they back a lot of booths up to each other. So you end up with these double wall peninsulas. You've got two walls, basically. 

0:44:37

(Chris Dunn)

In this particular instance that I'm thinking about, it's a 25 by 25. So it's only a little bit bigger, right? And this is in their head, I'm sure, when they're selecting the space. Oh, we usually do 400 square feet. We'll go with 500 square feet. Okay, but what did we just do? 

0:44:52

(Chris Dunn)

We went from an island that has four access points, all four sides are open. People can come streaming in from every side. It's a great, it's nice and open. Now, all of a sudden, we've got a double wall peninsula. Well, I don't want to see the back of the booth next to me. I actually, I have to dress that up to at least eight feet or put up really shitty looking pipe and drape. I don't want to do that. 

0:45:12

(Chris Dunn)

I want to take advantage of those walls, that real estate and take advantage. I'm paying for this space. I need to put the walls there. I'm going to put branding on, I'm putting messaging on it. Well, all of these things have a cost factor, right? So all of a sudden we go, well, our booth is only a little bigger than last year. 

0:45:30

(Chris Dunn)

Why are you giving me a price that's literally two X what it was last year? well, last year you were an island. This year, you're a double wall peninsula. All of a sudden, the structure is twice as much as it was before because you didn't think that the double wall peninsula situation would play out in a way that affected your budget in such a way. So again, this is just things that come with experience and not just looking at square footage and trying to estimate like, well, last year we had this, so I'm just going to carry that budget forward a pitch in 10 % or something. Surprises happen when things like that go down. 

0:46:09

(Chris Dunn)

So that does kind of play into my next questions, which is just kind of like budgeting and timeline planning and stuff like that. Let's talk about an ideal scenario, right? And we know that ideal is hard to get these days. We, I know, are looking for about 16 weeks for projects. when we're engaging with clients. 

0:46:29

(Bill Watson)

And oftentimes they're showing up well after 16 weeks has already expired on the way to that show date. But, but Bill, let's talk a little bit about in an ideal scenario. You know, we have five months, four months to plan and do all of the things. Let's say we've got 30 by 30. It's a Decently sized space at a bigger ish show what are some of those steps that that exhibitors can can take along the way to make sure that they're going to get the best. Or the the the efficiencies and and not blow their budget. 

0:47:05

(Bill Watson)

out of the, out of the water, I guess, from a timeline standpoint, you're looking to engage, have those original conversations, which then give you enough time to do the research, to talk to the rigors, to talk to the GC. What does that look like in an ideal world? Well, like everything else, it's, it's, it's flow. There's, there's certain things that I feel that, you know, we'll use your 30 by 30 thing that has a hanging sign and, and, you know, fair amount of structure. Okay. So, you know, based on that particular show, you know, we would try to carve out stuff that we want to try to get done first, which is get decisions on hanging signs and flooring, like, fast. 

0:47:50

(Bill Watson)

All right? But you also have to get dialed in with, you know, what their complexities of their booth structure needs when it comes to cabling. And I use cabling as a loose thing because it could be cat five, six could be electrical could be whatever they need in order to be because that all has to get down under the floor. So, Because the sooner you can get your hanging sign up, the sooner you get your flooring done, the sooner you can get your freight delivered, because it doesn't even have to be the same timing. But as long as you can get that stuff up in the air, you create your booth space. 

0:48:23

(Bill Watson)

They have to deliver your freight to the perimeter of your booth anyway, so it just makes it easier to be able to get your freight laid out fairly decently. So that when you show up to start literally doing where your most expensive part of this is depending on how many men and hours you're requiring to do this, that's when you start, you know, you get cost of, you start charging a fair amount of money per hour, okay? If you can't start at 8 .01 on a straight time day, or, you know, in general, everybody starts at eight o 'clock, no matter what. So you want to be able to start being efficient right away. You want to be able to open crates and get going with that stuff then. So any of the stuff that you can get out sooner is better, right? 

0:49:05

(Bill Watson)

As far as deciding on layout of your exhibit, you know, how are you going to go with your structures and stuff? That's critical in my mind, because you have to be able to like determine where your stuff is running to and what you're going to have Running under the carpet because it's all that early stuff. If you can get the early stuff dialed in focus on how you're going to have the flow of your booth going on there so that you guys can release design to be able to like then go with it. Then it's going to make your graphic. part, which is always the stuff that you're chasing at the end to get those approvals, you know, the last thing that you're really trying to get through. 

0:49:42

(Chris Dunn)

And then, you know, because you can't really do that until you get them to decide on what you're going to be doing structurally, right, Dana? So it's like, you know, you have to have some things, you have to have some things decided on early enough that you can be like, into what you're going to be doing so that you can get your stuff all out. Because it's, you know, everybody, you love to be able to think you're always going to get your freight delivered to advance because it's then it'll all be sitting there when your first, first moment you can do anything on the floor. But that's unrealistic. We all know that. 

0:50:11

(Chris Dunn)

But there's certain things if you focus on getting the hanging sign, getting the flooring in, and then hopefully you've got a pretty good dialed in, you know, with what you're doing electrical so that they can get that done in advance. So when you're in there getting your, you know, your hanging sign dealt with, you're getting the, you know, you're checking your electrical and any last minute changes, you have time to be able to like fix the electrical or add anything that you needed to do before you put the carpet down, still with the plan that you're starting structure the next day, then you're going to save a lot of time. Let me ask this in a slightly different way. I was going in a A little bit of a different direction on on my questioning I wasn't clear on that so I'm going to use the worst case scenario because we see this all the time as well somebody shows up. 

0:50:53

(Bill Watson)

they got a month before the show and the exhibit house says, we're going to, you know what, we're going to make this happen. We would ideally have loved four months. We've got one month. We're going to jump through hoops and make this happen. What does that do to you guys on your end? In other words, when you're in a perfect world, when you've got plenty of time, you're making the calls, you're getting the people that you want in place. 

0:51:13

(Bill Watson)

What happens when you don't have enough time? What corners do you need to cut and how does that impact the exhibitor? Well, anything you not letting anybody know with more planning is going to impact them. So yeah, you may have a sign and now I'm coming in with a late sign and they've already got kind of their plan and their labor calls kind of dialed in for how many riggers are going to have or how many electricians are going to have. And here you are dropping in a late bomb. So, you know, it's just going to affect what you're trying to get accomplished. 

0:51:45

(Bill Watson)

Now, of course, I can't tell you exactly how long it's going to take to get that sign up, because now you're just trying to throw something in there. 

0:51:51

(Speaker 11)

Depends on where you are on the floor. 

0:51:52

(Chris Dunn)

There's a number of variables that go into it, so you could have a worst -case scenario or a better -case scenario. If you're on a floor that's near bigger booths, it's absolutely going to have an impact on it, because now I'm trying to shove everything into an area that's already congested. that's already got priority because of other stuff that they've been planning and doing, because they've all been getting ready for a month. And I'm sure everybody feels that bigger booths get more attention, but they just do because it takes more to get it done. You know, it's advantageous for them to give them earlier shots at doing stuff, because they need to get stuff out of the way for everybody else that's coming in. So it's not like they're just favorable because they're spending more money. 

0:52:31

(Chris Dunn)

It's just they got to get some of this stuff done and get to get it clear so they can then service everyone else. Yeah. Yeah. Ultimately, when you when you throw to your use your terminology, a last minute bomb into the mix, you know, and that sometimes it happens, right? Either you lose track of a show and all, oh, shit, we've got this show or. you know, Joe, the sales rep comes to you is like, we got to be at this show. 

0:52:54

(Chris Dunn)

That's imperative. Like, and you find a space and you pull all the strings and you do this stuff. Like understand that with, with, with not enough time, there will be areas that people are going to have to cut corners. It's going to be more expensive and it, and it might not work out quite as well. And you got to know that that's part of the game when you go in, go in late like that. Hey, we are, We got seven minutes left to wrap this up. 

0:53:18

(Dana Esposito)

And we've been having an awesome - That went fast. It did go fast. And our connectivity is fantastic. 

0:53:23

(Chris Dunn)

We were struggling mightily on sound and audio. 

0:53:26

(Speaker 5)

And I think it's all, I probably totally just jinxed it. 

0:53:28

(Bill Watson)

We're just going to lose Bill. 

0:53:30

(Dana Esposito)

Dana, so I know we got a couple more questions and then we're going to kind of go into full wrap up mode. 

0:53:34

(Chris Dunn)

So let's do a little pivot. 

0:53:40

(Dana Esposito)

Oh, look, we lost Dana's, we lost Dana's audio. 

0:53:43

(Bill Watson)

Nope, there you go. 

0:53:44

(Speaker 10)

Sorry about that. 

0:53:45

(Bill Watson)

That was my fault. Okay, were you on mute? Yeah, I was. Lips are moving, but nothing's coming out. I have background noise sometimes, so I didn't wanna. Okay, all good. 

0:53:55

(Bill Watson)

What are some things that teams should ask their exhibit partner early in the process? Yeah, nice and vague. You're welcome. The first thing that they should say is like, listen, I don't know enough about fill in the blank city, What would be some, based on what I'm looking to do, where am I gonna get in trouble? Which just leads to a bigger thing. Please ask questions early. 

0:54:22

(Bill Watson)

There is, you know, the classic, there is no dumb question. Be surprised how early questions can help set the stage for when you do get a little bit more to the meat of it, you know what you're getting into and we have time to adjust. So it's like, you know, Again, it goes back to my same thing. Someone's going to be doing what you're doing. 

0:54:44

(Dana Esposito)

It's going to be different in every city. 

0:54:45

(Bill Watson)

Ask up front or, you know, because we are going to take that into consideration when we're doing our part of it, our, our, our piece of it. But, but for, for, for clients to just ask, Hey, I don't know enough about Louisville Convention Center. How does that differ from Nashville Convention Center? They're not that far apart. What are the rules in these different places or something like that so that we can say, Oh God, you know what? That sounds like it's a little bit more complex when it comes to hanging a sign. 

0:55:09

(Bill Watson)

I think I'm going to go with a simpler sign, or maybe I don't go with this, blah, blah, blah. You know, just ask questions, please ask questions earlier, the better. What would you say if you had to give some advice to someone who is more of a first time and exhibitor versus some advice that you'd give to more of a seasoned professional? I'll be gentle with this one. If you're a first time exhibitor, you're, you're, you're, you have to, just deal with the shock factor. 

0:55:42

(Bill Watson)

Because whatever conception you have of how long it's going to take, you're wrong. You're just wrong. And to think that everybody's got control of what they're trying to accomplish on the show floor, you're wrong. Everybody has to work in concert with everyone else in there. We try to let everybody know how long is it going to take to do something. it, when we finished, that's how long it took. 

0:56:07

(Bill Watson)

You know, because there's so many factors that go into it. 

0:56:11

(Speaker 9)

You know, best laid plans, you know how long it should take, or, or if you think it should take that long, you're not, you should add some time to it. 

0:56:18

(Chris Dunn)

Because you, you just don't understand the, the variables that are on the show floor that are going to get in the way of it, that you have absolutely no control over, that everybody deals with on a day -to -day basis. So we, we're used to it. And we, we build that into our estimate. Cause you may come back and your labor company may come back and give you a price. And you're like, what? Well, how could it take that long? 

0:56:37

(Chris Dunn)

Because the last thing you want to do is come back and, and, and say, Hey, you know, and I thought it was only going to take this long, but it took this long because of these things that I had no control over. And you're going to be like, you're still going to have to pay. So, yeah. And those things, like you said, out of our control, everything from, um, you know, the freight came in slow. 

0:56:58

(Bill Watson)

The freight needed to be put over against the wall 100 feet away. This happened to us in Chicago, right? They had to put the freight over there, which meant that on the teardown, our guys had to walk an extra 100 feet with every freaking panel. We could not control where they put it. 

0:57:13

(Dana Esposito)

It was just based on where we were in the show and all the other things that happened. And you hate to go back to the client at the end of the day with that big bill and say, sorry, we underestimated this. And granted, things will always, that stuff will happen. 

0:57:27

(Chris Dunn)

But again, it kind of goes back to that planning, open conversations with your partner with regards to, and I love your question, there. I hadn't thought about it like, but, you know, what can come back to bite me in the ass that I probably should be thinking about now so I can prep my, my leader, my management, and manage their expectations? 

0:57:48

(Bill Watson)

Like I said, it depends on where you are on the floor, even. All these things go into, go into these things. You know, we can lay, put a best -laid plan in there. But, you know. Now, I know we're mostly talking about exhibiting in the U . S. 

0:58:00

(Bill Watson)

, because exhibiting, I'm sorry, setting up internationally is a different story, so we're mostly talking about exhibiting in the U . S. , but Chris, did you want to set Bill up for sort of the three takeaways? Yeah, we got to kind of put a bow on this guy, so Bill, you talked, you mentioned a whole bunch of things. We shared some ideas, we shared some kind of best practices with regards to creating a strategy and a plan ahead of time. Two, three kind of takeaways, put a, put a bow on what we've already talked about, or is there something that you wanted to kind of hit on that maybe we didn't, that you want to leave with our listeners that will help them kind of manage their program as best as possible? 

0:58:44

(Bill Watson)

But mainly, I'm going to reiterate a couple of things. But, but the biggest thing is, it doesn't matter how big, your exhibit is, you have to build a plan from start to finish, because that'll help everybody manage the expectations and can give you some semblance of being able to hold on to costs. If we're recognizing when we expect things to be, even if it's breaking down, we do with some of the larger exhibits, we build timelines of what we feel should be accomplished on a particular day. And if we're getting past that, we have some time to try to make it up or try to adjust accordingly so you know any kind of a concrete plan because it doesn't matter what and it and it's in this through install and dismantle so that's the other thing too is like everybody thinks that the is on the getting the job in. It's equally important for your budget to make sure you have a good plan coming out. 

0:59:37

(Bill Watson)

One of the things that we're starting to see, you know, it's been talked about, we're waiting to see if it really gets instituted is one of the largest, you know, general contractors in the country went through an exercise of taking a look at some injuries that have been happening on the show floor and they got concerned about that and one of the things that they determined after doing some studying of a large number of shows is the speed of forklifts on a show floor is a liability. So they're going to look to put a governor on their forklifts, which is going to slow down forklifts, which is going to have an impact on everybody's budgets when it comes to moving freight in and especially bringing freight back on the dismantle. It's just going to take longer. 

1:00:17

(Speaker 8)

Anybody who sat around waiting on a crate, you know, so it's so when you put your plan together, take it all the way to the finish line when that truck drives away and heads back to your exhibit house. 

1:00:26

(Bill Watson)

I would ask for that. The other thing is, as I talked about a minute ago, is please don't be afraid to ask questions. And that leads to, you know, and it's not just to your exhibit house, but encourage whoever you're working with to get on the phone with the general contractors and or the buildings who are responsible for electric and rigging or any other of the services that you think might be a complex issue for your show and start breaking it down with how they feel they're going to do this. 

1:00:52

(Chris Dunn)

It'll eliminate surprises, hanging signs. You think it's going to take a certain amount of time. 

1:00:58

(Bill Watson)

It doesn't matter what you think, or even who made your sign for you thinks it's going to take. It's a matter of what they think it's going to take based on the complexity of their facility and how it's going to be to get it up to how you want it to be. 

1:01:09

(Speaker 7)

So it's just a hanging sign that you expect. 

1:01:12

(Chris Dunn)

So getting involved with that in advance, they will gladly have conversations with you about that. 

1:01:18

(Bill Watson)

They would like to know more about it going involved, OK? So that they're prepared and everybody's prepared to deliver what they need. buying. They really want you to have a good show is really what I want to leave you with. Everybody wants you to have the best show ever. 

1:01:32

(Chris Dunn)

So if you're getting everybody involved in this, helping us build a plan that is one that we feel you can execute, then you won't end up with the surprises and that disillusionment of like, oh my God, why did we spend that much money? Yeah, at the end of the day, everybody wants to control their budget and not having a plan leads to blowing your budget right out of the water. That's that's an easy because it's never going to stay. Your plan is going to get shot to hell. It just is. 

1:02:01

(Bill Watson)

So it is. But if there's no plan at all, then it's just like you're a rudderless boat on the ocean or worse. Your plan is your expectations of what you think it should be. And we'll help you walk through that. And we'll be able to give you explanations of why. And you'll win sometimes and you lose sometimes. 

1:02:15

(Bill Watson)

But in general, it balances out having a solid plan. 

1:02:21

(Speaker 6)

Hey, this has been fantastic. 

1:02:23

(Chris Dunn)

We got to wrap this guy up. Bill, what's the best way for people to reach out? Because obviously you shared some gems. People might have some questions. Oh, I'd love to talk to anybody who got questions. Please don't hesitate. 

1:02:32

(Chris Dunn)

Get a hold of me on LinkedIn. It's the best way for you to be able to do it. Give me a little bit of time, as you imagine. I'm the one traveling the least of my group, and I'm 130 plus days a year. So I promise I'll get back to anybody who reaches out to me. All right, fantastic. 

1:02:48

(Chris Dunn)

And then last but not least, Will Flores and Rich Keefer having a grand old time talking it up in the chat here. So appreciate that, Will. Will's a good friend of ours from the GC side. 

1:03:02

(Bill Watson)

I'd like to say thank you to both of you guys. 

1:03:04

(Speaker 5)

I have been looking forward to this call for a while. 

1:03:08

(Chris Dunn)

Bill and I work together all the time, and we have these really great in -depth conversations about minutiae that really is so important when it comes to everything with your exhibiting. 

1:03:19

(Speaker 4)

Getting your carpet there late can really impact everything, because I can't build a booth on top of no carpet. Little shit like that just freaking will drive you mad. 

1:03:29

(Chris Dunn)

But if you don't get it right, things go wrong. So anyways, we're wrapping up the toolbox. Dana and I got to get on a call. This has been fantastic. Thank you so much, everybody. Happy eventing and have a great rest of your week. 

1:03:43

Bill, thank you so much for joining. Always my pleasure. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it. All right. Take care, everybody. 

1:03:49

Cheers.