Miniseries: Aspects of Exhibitions and Events – Organizing through Communicating

Organizing is what you do before you do something, so that when you do it, it is not all mixed up.
- Alan Alexander Milne

Organizing an exhibition or event is not an easy task – it involves thinking through the entire production of your event or exhibition, and setting up every aspect and party involved in the exhibition or event to go according to your plans. It is about communicating, directing, taking decisions, improvising, and not being afraid to get your hands dirty. It is working ceaselessly until the cut off point: the (grand) opening of your exhibition or event.

Communicating with Suppliers
Organizing your exhibition or event does not start on the day you receive the keys to your location to start build-up. Organizing the exhibition or event starts well before this time: up to a few months in advance, you can start organizing orders and information for your suppliers; they need to know which products have been ordered. Sometimes, the products may require input from the exhibitor, which you will need to check and if no input is given, notify the exhibitor – last minute input must be kept to an absolute minimum, as it will increase risks of making mistakes and may cause extra charges from your suppliers.

Communicating with Exhibitors

Communicating practical information
Communication with your suppliers isn't the only communication you need to handle: your exhibitors need to know when and where they can build and/or furnish their booth. If your exhibition or event is very large, it might be useful for your exhibitors to know in advance which door they and their suppliers can use to get closest to the booth's location.

Communicating orders
Besides very practical information, it is also important to communicate to exhibitors what they will need for their booth; did an exhibitor not order carpeting with their booth construction? Chances are, that they forgot to order it, or that they thought carpeting comes standard with their construction. So, communicate with exhibitors what they have and have not ordered for their participation: it will save you a lot of last minute orders and stress.

Communicating to prevent disappointment
In general, reducing the last minute ordering ensures that exhibitors get what they ordered: to meet last minute orders, a supplier may (be required to) bring additional products, but they are limited in the amount of additional products they can take with them – some exhibitors may be disappointed when a certain type of chair or a specific color is not available.

Fairsatile helps organizers communicate

Fairsatile shows suppliers orders
Your suppliers can check the current orders in Fairsatile, so your suppliers know what products they need to supply to your exhibition or event. Should a product, f.i. an advertisement, require exhibitor input (a pdf with the advertisement), Fairsatile enables the exhibitor to upload this file to our server. Once uploaded, the file becomes available for download to the relevant supplier. No more files sitting in your inbox, filling it to the brim!

Fairsatile shows exhibitors their orders
Fairsatile shows your exhibitors exactly what they have ordered. If an exhibitor has ordered a product which requires their input, they will see a reminder of the deadline for supplying this information in Fairsatile. The reminder also guides the exhibitor to uploading the required input.

Fairsatile shows organizers what's (not) happening
Fairsatile provides a check for organizers, to see which exhibitors have not ordered products. A call or email to check with these exhibitors ensures that no-one forgets to order the products they need for your exhibition. Also, for the products which require exhibitor input, Fairsatile shows which exhibitors have not uploaded input yet. Again, a call or email makes you come across as pro-active and involved, while you ensure that all required input is gathered before the deadline.

Fairsatile shows exhibitors general information
Practical information can be communicated through Fairsatile by the exhibition information page. Here, exhibitors can find the general information about an exhibition or event. You can also upload files such as handbooks, instructions, but also banners, logos, etcetera to the server, which become available through this exhibition information page. If you want to make some information from your manual even more visible, you can add snippets of information to the exhibition information page yourself. This helps eliminate discussions about your communication: Fairsatile shows exhibitors and suppliers all the information they need.

In short, Fairsatile can be a great tool to organize your exhibition or event, because it makes communication with both your suppliers and your exhibitors easier. Fairsatile also speeds up the transmission of information between exhibitor and supplier, because files do not linger in your inbox, but instead are passed on through our server.

Are you curious about Fairsatile? Send us your information and questions through the contactform, we'll be in touch!

01 March 2011 11:35