Throwing Money at Airlines, Hotels and Trade Show Space

by Lawrence Aylward — March 22, 2016

You couldn’t blame the vendor for being irked. In a mere six weeks, the vendor traveled to and from San Diego for three trade shows — the Sports Turf Managers Association’s (STMA) show, the Golf Industry Show (GIS) and the Club Managers Association (CMA) of America show.

The vendor, who requested anonymity, has no problem with sunny San Diego — but he did have a problem with having to spend thousands of dollars to travel and exhibit there for three different trade shows in a short time span.

It’s not like these three trade shows aren’t related. Heck, the CMAA show used to be part of the GIS!

This vendor wasn’t the only vendor that threw a bunch of money at airplanes, hotels and trade-show floor space. Plenty of companies exhibiting at the GIS also exhibited at the other two shows. Why weren’t the shows scheduled back to back to back?

Chalk this up to poor planning — very poor planning. Next time, the powers that be at these organizations need to get on the same page to avoid a scheduling mishap of this magnitude.

“There has to be a better way of doing this than building three separate booths in a six-week period,” the vendor said.

In an era where these industries tout the importance of sustainability, this wasn’t sustainable at all.

reprinted with permission from Superintendent Magazine