Friday November 12, 2004 - Prepping for a Show

Friday November 12, 2004 - Prepping for a Show

I’ve been totally consumed with the preparation and execution of a conference and exhibition the past several days. It has been exhausting, exhilarating, as well as bittersweet. You might call it post-conference depression. For three days the adrenalin is pumping through you constantly from the time you wake each morning to the time you close your eyes at night and drift into sleep. And even in sleep your mind wrestles with a myriad of problems you’ve yet to solve as well as guilt dreams about all the problems you allowed to crop up.

Beginning is the most nerve-wracking time. You enter the large cavernous space or a hotel convention facility and it’s a shell with several rows of linen draped tables arranged in classroom style with rows of empty chairs all sitting in mute anticipation of the burden that will descend upon them within a matter of hours. In that interim, there are a myriad of things that must occur. The audio-visual contractors are busily running cables around the perimeter of the room connecting microphones at speaker podiums and panelist chairs in a long table beside the podium where six anxious speakers will try their damnedest not to say something that will make themselves look stupid or far worse, unhip. Both podium and panelist table are elevated atop 3-ft high risers that form a stage of roughly 18-ft long by 6-ft wide. Another group is erecting two large 14-foot backlit projection screens on either end of a room twice as wide as it is deep. All along the length of the room on either side of the large screens 16-foot tall curtains of black drape covers the unsightly collection of wires, boxes and other paraphernalia.

That’s only half of the overnight construction project that must be completed. An area identical in size to the conference room and sharing a common air wall is completely empty except for a long just under inch thick black cable that is distributing thousands of watts of power at 20 different spots around the perimeter of the room. At each equidistantly spaced locations a 10 foot pop-up booth will sit behind a table-full of equipment, literature, and giveaways. Late afternoon on Monday the hotel staff was wheeling out the pop up exhibits and depositing them in front of each spot on the perimeter. A paper diagram identifies the location of each exhibit as well as a printed piece of paper containing the name of the exhibitor laid on top of a table sitting at each of the 20 locations.

Within an hour, the owners of those spots are busily constructing their gypsy storefront in anticipation of an bevy of business they are expecting to do the following day. I have to deliver that business so they will be content for the outrageous rent I’m charging for their two-day lease on this prime piece of real estate. Once the exhibitors begin their construction, the time is filled with an endless stream of requests for a second table, extra power strips, two-sided tape, help finding errant boxes that should have arrived last Friday…

Meanwhile in the conference side, the AV guys are anxious to get a PC connected to their high powered LCD projectors to align the projector with the screen so that the hundreds of pages of PowerPoint presentation foils all display within the boundaries of the screen. Once hooked up, the mini-Sony Vaio notebook drives each presentation it has stored in its “Conference Presentations” folder on the desktop is put through its paces. We’re running the whole conference in fast forward mode each slide to see no information intended for display is somehow obscured. In the background the sound of “test 1, 2, 3” is being repeated like a religious mantra alternating with the word “check” spoken with a sharp edge to see if the huge mixer and amplifier get thrown into some form of distortion.

Sometime around 8;30 Monday evening, both rooms are transformed with two huge 12-foot banners hanging on either side of the raised speaker podium and panelist table. Atop the table and podium, each microphone stands at an angular attention, slightly obscured by place cards identifying each panelist with only the moderator’s name hidden. His name will sit atop the podium when the panel promptly begins at 1:00 PM on Tuesday. Two other 12-foot banners in the exhibition area grace the top of the air wall shared with the conference room. Below the signs arrayed around the inside walls of the exhibition hall are 20 brightly decorated booths festooned with company and product signage, all extolling the virtues of the company occupying that space.

In the hallway outside the exhibition hall are stacks of boxes containing presentation materials for the attendees as well as a line of notebook computers and a printer all ready to identify and register each person that will come through the door on the following day. A five-foot ten or so tall, stocky built, but pleasant looking security guard sits across from the row of tables supporting computers and printer. Inside the exhibition area, another security guard, of about the same height but of a slighter build holds a lonely vigil in front of an exhibit booth containing at least $100,000 worth of equipment.

I leave for the evening with a sense of anticipation about the first day of the event. I’ve made a list of all the things I need to do from the time I arrive at 7:15 Tuesday morning until the opening bell rings for the conference to begin. I’ve not had anything but two cups of coffee since I woke up Monday morning and I decide to treat myself to a hamburger in the hotel bar. For some reason I crave greasy food when I’m stressed out and anxious. From the time I leave the hotel and make my way to home and an early turn-in, the clock is ticking relentless toward that moment when the crowd is called to order and the show begins.

Tomorrow I’ll tell you how the first day went.