Groom & Kennel Expo 2012 – Pasadena, CA
As anyone who has ever exhibited at trade show knows, working the booth during the show itself is only a small portion of the overall effort that goes into attending a trade show.
We thought it might be fun to document the Ryan’s trade show experience from beginning to end with a camera to give our customers an entertaining and insightful perspective of what it takes for us to participate in a trade show. If you’ve ever seen the Ryan’s booth (which is more like a fully functioning store) at a trade show, you’ll know that a lot of effort goes into our trade show appearances.
We hope you enjoy this behind the scenes look at the days leading up to and during our visit to the 2012 Groom & Kennel Expo in Pasadena, California. We certainly had fun putting this together and who knows…if you were there, you just might see yourself in one of our photos!!
Getting to the show
The process of getting to the trade show actually starts months in advance as we plan and coordinate our booth space, hotel and travel arrangements. Once the paperwork has all been shuffled and the extra products have been ordered and received, it’s time to get down to packing everything up for the trucks to ship out to the show location. Many of our booth’s shelves and displays are prepared and assembled ahead of time. Slowly, one by one each piece of our booth makes its way onto a truck and our guys make the journey to the show’s location.
Setting up the booth
Arriving at the show’s location is only the beginning. We wait our turn getting a space at the loading dock to begin unloading everything and moving it out onto the trade show floor. When we arrive, the show room is usually nothing more than just an empty exhibition hall with dock workers, electricians and show administrators feverishly working to get the room ready for everyone to set up their booths. Once we have our space carpeted and wired for electricity our guys work hard to get the booth set up and ready for the show’s attendees who will arrive in a matter of hours. Shelves that have taken weeks to stock and prepare all need to be unpacked, organized and arranged in only a few hours.
During the show
When the doors open it’s showtime! If you’ve never seen our booth at a show before, you’re in for a real treat because we practically bring our entire store with us. Our booth is more than just a few smiling faces and a stack of catalogs…it’s more of a satellite office for a few days . We go all out with a full-on store complete with aisles, shelves and two checkout lanes that each have two cash registers. We bring tons of equipment and offer valuable savings through show-only specials in addition to our everyday low prices. It’s no wonder our booth gets to be so popular at these shows and our staff works hard to keep the well-oiled machine running smooth.
A live look at the real thing
Here’s a video we shot at one of our busiest times of the show. Thanks to everyone who stopped by to see us! We truly appreciate your business and look forward to seeing you again next year!!
Tear down and the trip home
The work doesn’t stop when the show ends. Everything in our booth has to be taken apart and packed up to get placed back on the trucks and be driven home. Our staff works hard to get everything done quickly so that the trade show hall can get ready for their next event. Depending on where the show is located, the drive home can also take several hours.
Back at the office
Our trade show effort still isn’t quite finished! Once everything and everyone make it back to our warehouse it all has to get un-packed. Anything that wasn’t sold at the trade show gets stocked in our warehouse along with everything else sold in our catalog and on our website. Any customer orders for sharpening and repair given to us at the show are processed by our Sharpening & Repair center. All to-be-shipped orders we receive at the show are processed and sent out.
As you can see – the process of attending a trade show involves a lot of hard work and some long days and nights, but we also have a lot of fun too! We enjoy talking with our customers in person at every show we attend. It is exciting for us to be able to see our existing customers and to meet new ones. So, if you’re ever at a show we’re attending…stop by and say hello. We’d love to see you!!