For companies exhibiting at the Digital Dealer Conference & Exhibition.

Transcription

1 For companies exhibiting at the Digital Dealer Conference & Exhibition. Whether you are a company that has been exhibiting for years or this is your first time, the information contained in this Exhibitor Information Overview can be a great help in making your exhibition experience at the Digital Dealer Conference & Exhibition more enjoyable and profitable. Please take a few minutes to read and better understand the conference operations. PREMCOR, Inc. is the event management company that: registers all attendees, manages the show services company, manages the exhibit hall, meeting rooms, Audio Visual for meeting rooms, food and beverage for the conference, and works with the IT company to obtain discounted IT internet connections for exhibitors. The information that follows will explain how all this ties in with your experience as an exhibitor and what you can expect as an exhibitor at the conference. The PREMCOR management team has experience with over 1,000 events and the information we provide here is from this experience. Overview: First and foremost, exhibiting can be expensive..exhibiting at any trade show. Yet, face to face marketing is the most efficient way of meeting with your clients and the Digital Dealer Conference & Exhibition is the premier conference for automotive internet sales professionals. Hundreds of Dealers attend this conference to network, attend the highly acclaimed sessions and meet with exhibitors to find out how to improve their sales performance. As an exhibitor you have an opportunity to meet with each one of these dealership personnel who are responsible for the success of their dealership. They want to know how to be better at what they do and if you have a product or services that can help them accomplish their goal, they want to meet with you. Have you ever been to any type trade show and wonder why some exhibitor s booths are always full while others seem to be empty? Some companies just buy booth space and come in with a small sign and sit back and wait for attendees to stop by and talk to them!!! Buying booth space at Digital Dealer Conference & Exhibition is an excellent investment because the meal functions are all created around the exhibit hall to ensure maximum exhibit hall traffic. In addition there are other things you need to do to capitalize on this traffic. This includes having an interesting presentation of your product/service and a pr ing of an invitation to get attendees into your booth. There are several sponsorships and other opportunities where you can obtain pre-registration lists to send out advance information on why attendees should come by your booth. Talk to your Dealer Communications Representative and they can explain all the opportunities for sponsorship and benefits. Creating energy in your booth with an interesting presentation/ demonstration and getting the word out before the conference is the key to having a lot of activity at your booth. Digital Dealer Conference & Exhibition puts together an incredible program of topics to attract Dealership Internet Sales Professionals and the conference plans the meals to keep the attendees in the exhibit hall with two breakfasts, a lunch and two receptions. Showbook: The person listed on the Conference/Exhibition Contract will receive the Showbook about days before the Conference. The showbook is via electronic copy and is the most important source of information for the exhibition at the conference. It contains dates and times for installation and dismantle of your booth, dates and times for show hours, rules and regulations to ensure success and safety of the exhibit hall and that all exhibitors are treated fairly. The showbook also contains all the forms an exhibitor will need to order the various services that may be required for your booth. Services include

2 internet connections, lead retrieval, electricity, carpet, and furniture, shipping information, labor if needed to set up or dismantle a booth, signage rigging and many others. One of the biggest mistakes exhibitors make is not taking time to carefully read the shoowbook well in advance of the conference. This can cause missed deadlines, rush orders and shipping and increased costs for late orders. If you are the person receiving the showbook but not the person who will be placing the orders for show services, PLEASE ensure the responsible personnel are given the showbook and reminded to read it as soon as possible. Let s look at the main items that need to be considered for any exhibitor: Internet: First, PREMCOR does not provide the internet in the exhibit hall. Many hotels and conference centers contract out to an internet company. What PREMCOR does is to negotiate with the internet provider, whether it is the hotel or an outside contractor, to obtain a discounted price for the exhibitors at conferences we coordinate. Rather than paying the standard retail rate for internet of about $1,400- $1,800 and being confused with having to understand the 20 different configurations each provider has, we make it easy for the exhibitor by only having to deal with ordering wired or wireless. We negotiate a single high bandwidth for a discounted price. In order to get that discount you must place your order through a PREMCOR order form. This is to ensure you are part of the digital dealer conference and get the proper discount. You are certainly welcome to deal direct with the hotel, but you will not get the discount if you do. Before choosing wired or wireless IT connections, know the difference. Wired Internet Connections: While more expensive, a wired connection assures you security and speed: 1. VPN Connection-Virtual Private Network- From the time you first log into your selected server until you log out, you have a VPN and there is no need to reconnect unless your site requires it. 2. Speed- Fully capable of handling most applications you will require from your booth. IT staff can easily upgrade with additional bandwidth if necessary. 3. Presentations- wired connections are a must when doing a presentations in front of a group general session or breakout room. When presenting to a group, you don t want ANY interference from other wireless applications nearby or dropped connections. Wireless Internet Connections: While less expensive and mobile within a designated area, there are some issues to be considered before ordering wireless: 1. Reconnecting- It may be necessary for you to reconnect to your web site if your selected site security drops connections after a period of non use. This means that if you are in your booth and run a demo with a customer and then not use your computer for another 30 minutes, your very own site may shut you down for security reasons. You could be in the middle of a demo and drop a connection.not good for your customer who is watching your demo. You may need to get through your fire wall and that could take extra time to reconnect. For additional security reasons, the exhibit hall servers often require periodic reconnects that are random and if a user is dormant after a period of time, the connection may be dropped. How long you can be dormant will also vary depending on how many other users are on line. Again if reconnecting is going to be any issue with your use of the internet, wireless is not for you.

3 2. Speed- If you are demonstrating a software package or again, using your home based server, the speed will not be as fast as a wired and downloading attachments or graphics will further slow down the connection If you are simply using the internet to check your s and send text back and forth, then wireless is fine and saves you money; however, if used during your presentation, your audience could be using your wireless connection for their personal use rather than giving their attention to your subject and this will further slow the speed of your presentation. 4. Due to the many disadvantages and unreliability issues, often wireless is not even offered, not because the provider isn t making as much on it compared to wired, but because it is not worth the time it takes responding to multiple and often calls for service because the exhibitor cannot get their internet to work. The problem is usually due to too many users trying to use it at the same time and depleting the band width. Wireless Cards: This is a real gamble. If you wait until you get on site to try your wireless card and it does not work and you need internet, you will now have to pay the higher rate for on-site orders. If it does work you should be fine for s. Wireless cards fall under the same conditions as the Wireless Internet Connection listed above. Signal Strength: Another area that needs to be considered is signal strength. Most exhibit halls, Hotels, etc use one carrier as the preferred internet provider. Their entire communications system, phone, internet, walkie talkies, cable, is usually on one system. Some typical providers are ATT, Sprint, Vorizon, Windstream, etc. They will install repeaters throughout the hotel property and if you are a customer of the company that is the provider, you are going to have great signal strength. However, if you have a different service than the hotel, you probably are going to have some trouble in various parts of the building. Even cell phones fall victim to this situation. If you stand near a window you get a signal, if you move further into the concrete and steel you lose the signal. MANY times you will get a message, Signal Blocked coming up on your phone. This message is coming from your provider that means there is signal in the area but something it blocking it.concrete and steel!!!! It does NOT mean that the hotel is intentionally blocking you from using your phone or internet. If you get a message, Signal Being Jammed then something is jamming the signal and has nothing to do with the building structure. In summary, if you want to make sure you have quality internet, always go with the exhibit hall provider. The forms will be in the show book. Also if you have trouble with your internet during exhibit hours or during a speaking presentation and you are using your own card you are on your own. So while you may try your card at the start of the conference and it works..it may not be working opening day or during your presentation. If you are using the show provider, you can ask for assistance from our staff who can radio a technician immediately. Material Handling (Drayage): This is an item that if you understand it you can save money. If you don t understand it, you could end up paying double or triple. Material handling or drayage is the service of the show decorator whereby they receive shipments of booths, literature, products, etc. from the exhibitor and transport it to the exhibitor s booth. A material handling fee usually covers both inbound and outbound handling of your freight, but not the freight itself. Material Handling fees are based on weight. It is referred to as Hundred Weight abbreviated as cwt. or hwt. The usual fees will be stated per hundred pounds or a part of a hundred. So if your weight is 745 lbs. and the cwt rate is $85 you would divide the 745 by 100 and end up with Multiply the cwt.

4 Rate ($85 in this example) times 8 (always go to the next hundred number of a partial) and your cost is $ There are usually two ways to ship your booth/materials to the conference: Advance Warehouse and/or Show Site. Advance Warehouse is where you ship to the warehouse of the Show Service Decorator (usually, Fern Co., GES, Freeman, etc.). Your freight is brought into the warehouse and staged with other exhibitors freight going to the same conference/exhibition. Then the day of or the day before set up begins, all the freight for the conference is delivered to the exhibit hall and to the exhibitor s booth. Show Site shipments are shipments directly to where the conference/ exhibition is being held. Your freight carrier comes to a marshalling yard (off site close by to avoid a congestion of trucks at the loading dock area) to await their turn to drive up to the loading dock and have your freight unloaded. Many times there is a marshalling yard fee of about $ Also, sometimes you will be given a target time for your freight. This means your freight must be delivered and will be unloaded at a certain time. Target freight is to avoid long waits by the truck drivers and to cut down or eliminate the need for a marshalling yard. Make sure your carrier knows this is a Targeted Delivery because it your carrier misses their targeted time there can be extra fees. Material Handling Fees vary by several factors. Many times it is a slightly higher fee to ship Advance Warehouse since it must be unloaded from your freight carrier at the warehouse, stored, reloaded and trucked over to the exhibit hall and then unloaded and brought to your booth. Show Site is just unloading and delivering to your booth. However, if your freight is shipped Advance Warehouse, and you specify must be delivered before 3pm local time week days, your will only be charged straight time for the Advance Warehouse. If you ship to Show Site, even with a target time, the show may be setting up on Saturday or Sunday and that means overtime rates on the loading dock and you will be charged a higher fee for Show Site than if you had shipped Advance Warehouse! To be safe, it is always better to ship Advance Warehouse if possible and specify a delivery time that is within the standard hours of the warehouse. Using this method allows you to track your freight and know that it has been delivered to the warehouse, and you can schedule your set up time for your booth. Too many times Targeted Show Site freight did not make it due to weather, strikes, breakdowns, etc., and the exhibitor is sitting in an empty booth awaiting their freight. Combine items into one package. Since Material Handling Fees are applied to Each Piece of freight, it is far better to put several boxes on a pallet and shrink wrap them into one piece that is easily picked up with a fork lift and moved. While the weight is pretty much the same as individual pieces, the fee is usually a minimum of 1cwt. rate and if you have 4 boxes of literature and products, etc. and each box only weighs 15 pounds, you would have to pay 4 times the hundred weight rate. If you had put all these on a pallet and shipped as one piece, you would only have paid for one piece of freight at 60 pounds, plus the pallet of 40 pounds for a total of 100 pounds. At a standard cwt of $85, the entire shipment with boxes and pallet would have cost $85.00 as opposed to 4 boxes costing the minimum of $85 each or $ Plus there is usually a surcharge on packages or other freight that must be handled by hand. The least expensive way to send any freight to a trade show is to ship well in advance, ship to Advance Warehouse for delivery during standard (straight) time and ship it so the freight can be moved with a fork lift or pallet jack.

5 We always get the question can I carry my own material into the hall without having to pay for material handling? The material handling is controlled by the union and the simple answer is: If you can carry something in your hands or roll a case, without the aid of a dolly, then you usually don t have to use material handling if you can come through the front of the exhibit hall. You cannot, however, pull up to the loading dock and unload your vehicle and proceed to make trip after trip to your booth. The loading dock is for authorized carriers.not private vehicles. Most exhibit halls are usually too far away from where you would need to haul a large amount of material from your vehicle anyway, so you need assistance. Some exhibitors try to ship materials direct to themselves at the hotel, planning on having the bellman take it over to the booth. This is usually a bad idea and can be expensive. First, most hotels have a business center that receives all packages, or a shipping/receiving..not the bell stand. This has become a revenue center for them and they charge for packages. Usually $20-25per box for up to x size or weight and the costs go up from there. The cost for shipping a portable booth to the hotel can cost up to $200 and then you have to get it from the shipping room to your booth.many hotels do not allow bell staff to enter the exhibit hall due to union regulations. The bottom line is that most times it is far better to ship your material to advance warehouse and have it delivered to your booth. You can track it and make sure it arrived, the material handling fee to receive it, transport it to your booth can be less than using the hotel and a lot easier. Also, because most carriers know that shipping to a show site means that the driver will have extended wait time, the rate for exhibit material is usually higher than regular freight shipped to a business location (advanced warehouse). Electrical: Complete forms for ordering electrical will be found in the showbook. Several factors affect the price to provide electricity to your booth. The standard 10x10 booth with an electrical drop of 500 Watts (the equivalent of watt light bulbs) is usually sufficient to power a computer, a lead reader, and cell phone charger and 2 accent lights on your artwork. The cost for this will typically be in the area of $100 for the entire show. Power is provided to the back of the booth and has one outlet. It is up to you to bring a drop cord and splitter plug if you want to run power to other parts of the booth. If, however, you have 4 computers, a backlit booth with spot lights and products that require higher power consumption and you need to run the power cords under the carpet to different locations, you could end up spending $1,000 instead of the $100 mentioned above. The Electrical requirements at each hotel are different, but generally speaking, the fire marshal requires any wiring under carpet and many times, the running of wiring within an exhibit to be done by an authorized union licensed electrician. Carpet: Carpet is usually required in any exhibition and we try to contract with hotels that have carpeted halls. When we cannot get a carpeted hall, we negotiate a reduced price for exhibitors to rent carpet or they can provide their own (if it meets fire marshal requirements). Carpet order forms are in the show book in case an exhibitor wants to order a specific color or extra padding for their booth even if the hotel hall has carpet or in the event the exhibition is held in a hall that is not carpeted. Fire Marshal: The local Fire Marshal has total authority over the safety in any exhibition hall. The Fire Marshal of a city has the authority over any hotel or conference center. All floor plans must be approved by the local Fire

6 Marshal to ensure aisles are large enough and uncluttered or open to allow ingress and egress in the event of an emergency. A lot of exhibitors try to store empty boxes or cartons behind the curtains of their booth and this creates a huge fire potential. Most Fire Marshals will walk the hall just before the show opens looking for blocked aisles, storage behind curtains, blocked fire extinguishers or alarms or fire hoses. If an exhibitor tries to store empty boxes or cartons behind curtains, they order show management to discard it or shut down the show until it is removed. As an exhibitor, you can help prevent fires and improve the safety of the show by properly storing your empties. Put a show Empty label on your cartons/ boxes and the show decorator will remove them and store them for you and return them at the end of the show. Thank you for participating in the Digital Dealer Conference & Exposition, George Thurman President, PREMCOR, Inc.