Tuesday, May 31, 2011

2011 Summer Trade Show Season

The Summer has traditionally been the "slow" time of the year for trade shows, but 2011 is seeing something new. Many of the fall shows have changed their dates for 2011 and will take place in the summer. Specifically the HBA Global Expo in New York's Javits Convention Center.

The 2011 HBA Global Expo is taking place June 28 - 30 this year and is a nice change for companies like CDS Displays who provides displays, exhibit rentals and graphics to several HBA Global exhibitors. We are happy to see this popular show moved to the summer.

CDS has provided so many exhibits for the HBA Global Expo over the years that we actually created a separate micro-site specifically for HBA Global exhibitors. www.hbaexhibitrentals.com is our show specific website. We are considering creating a similar site for the New York Toy Fair since that too is a very busy rental show for CDS Displays. You can see some of our 2010 Toy Fair display examples at our main website http://www.cdsdisplays.com/ and on our Facebook page www.facebook.com/cdsdisplays.

Monday, May 30, 2011

Save Big Money at your next Trade Show

You can save big money at your next trade show by simply reducing the size and weight of your overall exhibit. Don't you know that the shipping companies and show sites charge you to handle your exhibit in transit based on it's weight.

Your shipping fees can be cut in half or more by designing a display that is light weight and portable versus a large custom crated monster. Shipping is only a portion of the cost. The next expense that can be greatly reduced is your "material Handling." (also known as "Drayage") The material handling rate on the last show that we arranged at the Javits Center in New York was $137 per 100 lbs. This equals $1.37 per pound of freight that you bring into the building.

We see many companies who do not hesitate to ship 5,000 or 10,000 or more pounds of crates into a convention center. You can do the math yourself, but prove our point a 10,000 pound crated exhibit at the rate of $1.37 per pound would cost $13,700 just to bring in the convention center. We are sure your company can find much better things to spend $13K on.

CDS has been a leader in designing and producing lightweight exhibits since 1983. We have saved companies as much as $100,000 on their annual trade show expenses simply by designing displays and exhibits with weight and shipping size in mind from the start.

Even if you are not able to look to switch to a lighter weight exhibit right away, we urge you to consider a lighter load. Believe it or not just 2 cases of bottle water packed in your crate can add over $70 to both your shipping and drayage fees. That's $140 or $3 per bottle.

Now how much do you think your paying for that over-sized wooden crate, of those heavy counter units? By simply replacing a heavy wood and laminate based counter with a lightweight, fabric and aluminum based counter you can actually save close to $500 per show - per counter.

We offer some free cost savings worksheets on our website ( www.cdsdisplays.com/costsavings ) to help you determine just how much you can save by thinking light before your next show.