From time to time there are small, detail items that help save us time, money, effort or all three. One of those small things we should sweat is staging freight.

If you arrive at show site before your work starts and before your freight is unloaded, you have a great opportunity to stage your crates and your shipment. By placing the crates and goods around your space before you start set up, you’ll be putting hings where they can be unloaded with the most efficiency. Be sure to think about: Read More...

Getting the exhibit to the show is one of the last links in the chain, but a critical one: the show has to go on and it can’t (effectively) without your goods being at the show.

When arranging a truck or van to pick up and drop off your shipment, remember:

1. What are the size, shape, weight and number of pieces you are transporting?
2. When will the be ready to pick up and returned and who is the contact person?
3. Where are they going and who pays the bill?

Sizes and shapes. A trucker or shipping company/broker needs to know how many pieces and how much each weighs before they can give you a quote or estimate of the cost. You need to differentiate between crates, shrink-wrapped pallets or skids and loose items, like carpet rolls and rolls of pad. Since you have to calculate this anyway for your drayage (material handling) estimate and bill, it’s best to know this (or estimate it) as early as possible. Read More...

Closing a show can be tough–but it can be fun and relatively painless, too. The Rule of Thumb that it takes half the time to tear down that it took to set it up really does work. If we hadn’t to have waited for crates we would have been finished in 3 hours (it took 6 hours to set the booth).

Things to remember on the down: Read More...