Tradeshow Exhibits are distinguished in that they require a live audience and the design of a structure to efficiently process that audience. Tradeshow Exhibits may also require the production of other media, such as Videos, CD-ROMs, DVDs, Websites, Print and Foreign Language Translations, Meetings and Events. For the purpose of brevity, we cordially invite you to explore the Pre-Production pages for Video, CD-ROM, DVD and Websites, Print and Foreign Language Translation, or Meetings and Events, if any of these media are required in your tradeshow exhibit.

The pre-production of Tradeshow Exhibits is primarily concerned with efficiently attracting attention and then qualifying audience members. As inquisitive persons enter the zone of influence of the exhibit, they must be quickly Recognized and Qualified and then, either Registered or Eliminated. Ideally, this process will take less than one "man minute" of your booth's personnel, per person.

Efficient audience attraction and processing is the prime concern in pre-production, and is addressed in client-vendor meetings whose end result is a three part, pre-production document: Crowdflow, Agenda, and Registration.

Crowdflow begins with determining methods of promoting the exhibit before and during the show. Promotion may include trade magazine articles (Click here to see samples) and advertisements, advance mailings, email promotions (Click here to see sample), invitations, hotel advertising with posters, room cards and in-hotel television advertisements.

Crowdflow continues with an examination of the exhibit's floor plan. The placement of the exhibit within the show floor, the anticipated (or historically researched) flow of traffic past the exhibit and the internal configuration of the booth all have significant affects on the amount of traffic that can be anticipated within the booth. The goal of a tradeshow exhibit is to maximize audience size and quality. The size of the anticipated crowd flow will affect some costs, such as the need for give-aways (Click here to see samples) , brochures, etc. and the need for seating or audience participation elements and these elements will need to be coordinated with the available budget before they are concluded in the production plan.

The Agenda determines what the audience does, sees and hears while occupied by the exhibit. Often an exhibit will have extensive educational features focusing on the application of the client's product or service to the audience's needs. Educational features may be passive, interactive or active.

Passive educational features range from posters, displays, videos, holograms, projections, text and exhibits. Interactive educational features are include computer terminals driven by CD-ROM programs and exhibits which invite participation. Active features include stage shows, magicians, performed demonstrations, singers, dancers, acrobats, etc.

The agenda must include all such educational features with attention to their anticipated run-times so that the flow of traffic from one to the other will be harmonious. A well conceived tradeshow booth will employ some form of all three features.

Pre-production also implies the proper training of booth personnel and the implementation of a strict "10-20- 30" rule of time allocation. This rule determines that approximately 10 seconds be allocated to "recognize" a booth visitor, 20 seconds to "qualifying" a visitor and 30 seconds to "registering" the visitor.

Often a client's booth personnel are recruited from various departments of the customer's enterprise. Although they may know their company, its products and services, they may not know how to maximize thier time in a trade show exhibit booth. How many times have you seen exhibit booth attendants in deep conversation amongst themselves, or spending long periods of time talking with one booth visitor, while others are waiting to be acknowledged? Training in the skill of efficient trade show booth management is often required. Click to learn more about Tradeshow Exhibitor Training.

Registration of audience may be accomplished by hand or computer. Hand registration simply requires the acquisition of a hot prospect's business card and the taking of appropriate notes on the prospect's needs. The best way to collect business cards by hand is to use a notebook type of storage device, available in stationery stores. The card is inserted in a pocket and notes are written on the adjacent page. In this way, the card is shown respect, more notes can be taken, and the entire collection resides neatly in the attendant's pocket.

Computer registration relies on specially coded identification badges that are supplied by many tradeshow organizers. The organizer then rents a card reader to the client and as each attendee offers his card for "swiping," all of the attendee's registration informaion is recorded on magnetic media for followup and processing by the client. Employment of both systems is recommended and clients should be sure to have an adequate number of card swiper machines on hand. Nothing is more wasteful than a long line of eager prospects walking away because they don't want to wait for the swipe.

Once the pre-production, document detailing Crowdflow, Agenda and Registration is approved, it passes to the Producer who "breaks it down." The "breakdown" process allows the Producer to allocate the budget to each item that will initiate cost. For example, the breakdown will reveal how many lights, power outlets and feet of wiring required. It will also indicate any exhibits, signage, staging, presenters, videos, display booths etc. that are required.

Sometimes, the Agenda will have included some item that drives the cost of the production higher than the allowable budget. If so, the Producer must resolve the issue by inventing a creative solution that satisfies the client, asking for a reconfiguration of the Agenda, asking for a budget increase or a combination of all of the above. Such instances are rare, however, since most experienced Producers know how to write within a budget.

After the breakdown is complete and approved, the Producer proceeds to line up all the elements that will be required to initiate the production, such as organizing union labor, hiring a crew, checking out and/or renting equipment, scheduling actors, etc. When all elements are close to conclusion, the Producer calls a Pre-Production ("pre-pro") meeting between all key creative people and the client.

At the pre-pro, the Producer takes all parties, step-by-step through the production. Any complications, impossibilities, quesions and compromises to resolve all issues are made at this time. The pre-pro is the most important meeting in the production process and is intended to eliminate any unpredictable elements in the tasks ahead. Shortly after the pre-pro, many expensive people and tools will go into action. In spite of the fact that unpredictable problems can also be expected to appear, a good pre-pro will anticipate most if not all of them.

The Pre-Production phase of the project is now complete and we're ready to start Production.