Eco Gift Expo Redux

I've finally gotten around to offloading and organizing all the pictures from the Eco Gift Expo at the Santa Monica Convention Center in December. It was an exciting and productive trip, and we met a lot of great people there. This was the first expo that we've done (and definitely not the last) so it was good to get out there and talk to like-minded eco-conscious individuals that were as passionate about being green as we were.

Now being that it was the first time we have had a booth at an expo, there's some things you should know if you ever decide to do one...

1. Know your stuff - There will be a ton of different people going to the expo, be it consumers, business owners, as well as media (both print and web). They will all have different levels of knowledge about your product, and your competitors, ranging from completely uneducated to Mr. (or Ms.) Know-it-All. Know what you're talking about inside and out so that you can be the trusted expert to answer any and every question that may come your way.

2. Break out your wallet - The initial cost of booth may seem like a large expense, but for all the other costs like displays, building material, tools, rentals, it will quickly add up. The final cost after all was said and done was almost the cost of two booths. My recommendation is to call up your credit card company and ask them to raise your credit limit, and at the same time lower your interest rate.

3. Drink lots of coffee - Plan on moving around quickly and talking to everyone that walks by the booth. The hardest thing about this is when it's the second day, and you haven't gotten enough sleep, and your energy is waning. Your mood reflects on what you are selling, so if you look tired, or unmotivated, people will think you're not interested in your product so why should they? If you can't stand there for 10-13 hours straight, then you probably need to hire someone to do that.

4. Expect the expected and unexpected - There were so many things that went wrong from start to finish that we basically made up as we went along. Setup ideas, broken displays, talking points were all changed on the fly. It did help a huge amount that we planned everything else down to the tee so that everything else ended up being quite manageable.

So this is the story of our experience at the Eco Gift Expo…

The booth that we had purchased had a great location right near the main entrance and we were really excited about how lucky we got. Unfortunately, luck goes both ways. We mocked up exactly how all the displays would be set up and got the visual aspect down of what people would see as they walked by. About 3 weeks before the expo, we were told that our booth location had changed. The spot that we had before had been a sponsor spot, so we were moved to a different location. It didn't look as good on paper, but the actual location ended up being just as good, a corner booth near another entrance.

About a week before the convention, and the deadline to ship the displays from New York was coming up fast. The friend that I hired to make the clear boxes, fixtures, tracks, and wooden light boxes was finishing up the final pieces. By a random stroke of luck, I saw how the "12+1" display was coming together and made a last-minute major design change to it by putting all the fixtures on the outside of the box rather than the inside. This ended up saving the display and actually making it usable, as you'll see later.

As things always seem to go, we packed up everything in boxes and shipped them to L.A. at the very last minute. And by last minute, I mean the paint was still drying and UPS was about to close in 20 minutes. If we didn’t ship it when we did, it would not have made it to the expo in time. But what is success without the looming chance of complete and utter failure? I like to live on the edge. Unfortunately, there was a casualty upon arrival of the boxes in L.A…..

Let’s see the pictures.....Go to the Picture Diary