Frank Sinatra Exhibit 2015

Major Frank Sinatra exhibition planned for 2015 centennial year

The New York Library of the Performing Arts chose what would have been Frank Sinatra’s 99th birthday Friday to announce a major exhibition dedicated to the Chairman of the Board.

Curated by L.A.’s Grammy Museum, “Sinatra: An American Icon” is set to open in March, and is scheduled to travel to Los Angeles and other cities.

The exhibition is a collaboration with the Sinatra family and Frank Sinatra Enterprises and will include many items from the family’s personal collection, including concert and interview footage, letters, awards and other personal items along with film and music materials from the library.

It will focus on the 20th century’s premiere “saloon singer,” as Sinatra typically described himself, during the centennial of his birth in Hoboken, N.J., on Dec. 12, 1915. The show has been designated “the official exhibition of the 2015 Frank Sinatra Centennial,” and is scheduled to open March 4 and run through Sept. 4 at the performing arts library.

Pop & Hiss is still waiting to hear whether the show will include a noteworthy letter Sinatra wrote to The Times back in 1990 that has been circulating of late on the Internet. In it, Sinatra responded to a cover story on George Michael in which the former Wham! singer complained about the price of fame.

“I don’t understand a guy who lives ‘in hopes of reducing the strain of his celebrity status’,” Sinatra wrote at that time. “Here’s a kid who ‘wanted to be a pop star since I was about 7 years old.’ And now that he’s a smash performer and songwriter at 27 he wants to quit doing what tons of gifted youngsters all over the world would shoot grandma for — just one crack at what he’s complaining about.”

“Come on George. Loosen up,” he continued. “Swing, man. Dust off those gossamer wings and fly yourself to the moon of your choice and be grateful to carry the baggage we’ve all had to carry since those lean nights of sleeping on buses and helping the driver unload the instruments.”

We’re also hoping there’s a photo of the famous sign–or perhaps even the sign itself–memorably posted over the doorbell of Sinatra’s Hollywood home.

Songwriter Jimmy Webb talked about it during a show in L.A. a few years ago, recalling his invitation to meet Sinatra and hopes of getting him to record some of the songs that had quickly made the long-haired young musician from Oklahoma one of the hottest songwriters in the world in the mid- and late-1960s.

As Webb walked up to the door, he thought twice about pushing the button as he read the sign: “You better have a damn good reason for ringing this bell.” He did, and eventually Sinatra would refer to him as “the wonderful kid Jimmy Webb.”

Link to original LA Times Article

ICSC @ Javits 2014

ICSC will move its New York National Conference in 2014 to the expanded Jacob Javits Convention Center, on the far West Side of Manhattan, putting the meeting at the epicenter of the largest makeover project in New York City in decades. The New York Conference, ICSC’s second-largest annual event after RECon, will be housed in a facility that has just undergone a $463 million expansion and renovation. Under construction nearby is the $6 billion first phase of the Hudson Yards Redevelopment Project.

 

“This is an extremely important show, and it will now be in a place that can accommodate its future growth,” said Michael P. Kercheval, ICSC’s president and CEO. Each year the show continues to attract more retailers, investors, developers and others associated with the industry, Kercheval notes. “It is befitting that this conference, which is all about progress and development, will now be at the center of perhaps the most exciting urban renewal project currently under way anywhere.”

At the center of the Hudson Yards Redevelopment Project is The Related Cos.’ Hudson Yards, which will consist of 16 skyscrapers accommodating nearly 13 million square feet of office, housing and retail space, plus a school and 14 acres of open space. The whole project is being built on a platform covering the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s rail yards, through a joint venture between Related Cos. and Oxford Properties Group.

“It looks absolutely stunning,” said Timothy McGuinness, ICSC’s staff vice president of global trade expositions, referring to the refurbished and expanded Javits Center. The New York National Conference will occupy a 100,000-square-feet of exhibition space on the lower level, with an additional 50,000 square feet or so of meeting space. Looking to future years, “we could easily grow the show and meet all the requests of our members to expand the size of their booths.” Javits has a total of about 900,000 square feet of space. Access to the convention center from hotels in midtown Manhattan and Times Square is made easy by the recent extension of the No. 7 subway line that goes directly to Javits, McGuinness notes.

ICSC will shortly be releasing details of an Oct. 16 open house at which New York National Conference exhibitors will be invited to walk through Javits and attend a presentation about the Hudson Yards Project.

 

Link to original article on icsc.org

Publish Date: September 05, 2013

 

Additional information including tickets and schedule can be found through this link.

The Displayers at ComicCon

October 10, 2013 – examiner.com

 

When Greg Rathe, owner of The Displayers, a NYC company specializing in displays for conventions, museums, exhibits and other corporate clients, took over a building across the street from the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, he knew he wanted to do something really cool for one of the biggest and most popular conventions hosted at the location, New York Comic Con.

  

st marks sml

The Displayers moved into the new location back in June, and spent about 2 months cleaning up the industrial space and renovating it to suit their needs. Now, with today marking the kick off for the four day mega event, Rathe has turned his building into a pop up site that celebrates another NYC business, St. Mark’s Comics, which has been in the same location on St. Mark’s Place in the East Village for over 30 years.

 

460 11th Ave - The Displayers

 

Rathe’s business has been family oriented since before World War 2, when his Grandfather, Fred Rathe, began dressing windows for Macy’s. Rathe says he is a born and bred city boy, who remembers collecting comics as a kid, and therefore it made perfect sense that he team up with another city bred guy to celebrate Comic Con and provide great marketing for both family owned businesses during the convention.

 

Mitch Cutler and his comic shop have been fixtures on the main thoroughfare of the East Village since well before the street became the tourist attraction it is today … And now with NYCC in full swing, St. Mark’s Comics is hosting events over the next four days that solidify its status as a standard bearer of all that is cool in the comics universe. And, oh yeah, how about that cool pop up right across the street from the convention center, the St. Mark’s Comics Cartoon and Pizza Saloon?

Rathe has chosen this event to launch their new location and celebrate the New York Comic Convention, and so far, if the tweets from fans of St. Mark’s Comics are any indicator, it is looking like a success. One fan tweeted that pizza and comics in one place was her idea of heaven. Rathe had his company design a huge sign with the St. Mark’s Comics logo on a red banner to put up outside the building, which is located at 460 11th Avenue, between 37th and 38th Streets, and it cannot be missed by attendees lined up outside the convention center waiting to enter the halls of fandom.

 

Link to the entire article and Examiner.com

Written by:  Linda Covello

BizBash IdeaFest 2013

 Lauren Matthews | Posted November 1, 2013, 11:41 AM EDT

NEW YORK The BizBash IdeaFest New York took place at Javits Center North, the north hall of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, on Wednesday with a roster of offerings that included speakers such as former New York Giants running back and Thuzio co-founder Tiki Barber, event designer Bryan Rafanelli, and Bloomberg’s head of global events Thom Casadonte at the Event Innovation Forum; an early morning workshop series; and a lively show floor filled with new products, event services, entertainment, and venue ideas. Here’s a look at some of the top event design, decor, and rental ideas highlighted at the show.

– See more at: http://www.bizbash.com/19-new-design-and-rental-ideas-from-the-bizbash-ideafest-new-york/toronto/story/27390#sthash.7In0zavb.C80kaawj.dpuf

NEW YORK The BizBash IdeaFest New York took place at Javits Center North, the north hall of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, on Wednesday with a roster of offerings that included speakers such as former New York Giants running back and Thuzio co-founder Tiki Barber, event designer Bryan Rafanelli, and Bloomberg’s head of global events Thom Casadonte at the Event Innovation Forum; an early morning workshop series; and a lively show floor filled with new products, event services, entertainment, and venue ideas. Here’s a look at some of the top event design, decor, and rental ideas highlighted at the show.

See more about Bizbash IdeaFest 2013:

By Lauren Matthews | Posted November 1, 2013, 11:41 AM EDT

BizBash and the Event Leadership Institute are proud to announce the second Event Innovation Forum—New York at BizBash IdeaFest. After selling out in New York, Los Angeles, and South Florida, the Event Innovation Forum returns to New York with a new roster of thought leaders and innovative thinkers sharing curated presentations designed to help you take your event, business, and career to the next level.

The Event Innovation Forum is a TED-style conference packed with nine dynamic presentations designed to help you think more strategically about your events. In between sessions, attendees will be invited to a networking lunch where they will have the opportunity to speak directly with the presenters and connect with their peers.

 

Bryan Rafanelli, president and C.E.O., Rafanelli Events

Beauty and practicality are no longer mutually exclusive in event design.  In this session, Bryan Rafanelli will share case studies where event design was pushed to the limit and instances where design had to be rethought to not overshadow the event goal. From a recent private event held on a barge in the middle of  the Boston Harbor to private dinners, Rafanelli will talk about working with clients to help understand where design brings value, and where it’s simply unnecessary.

Richard Steinau, vice president, AV Concepts

Richard Steinau of AV Concepts, the company known for bringing Tupac back to life at Coachella 2012, will share the story behind the iconic hologram appearance and how technology can be used to enhance an event’s intended message—without distracting the audience. Steinau will reveal recent projects produced for Fortune 500 companies such as Nike and Dell, detailing how to utilize audio, visual, staging, and immersive technologies to impress attendees, create augmented reality experiences that break sensory barriers, defy spatial limitations, and build buzz that lasts long after the event.

Michael Trainer, U.S. country director, Global Poverty Project; executive producer and creative director, Global Citizen Festival

With the advent of social media, apps, and other technology, planners now have more tools to engage their audience, and, importantly for nonprofit organizers, raise funds and awareness. As U.S. country director of the Global Poverty Project, Michael Trainer was one of the masterminds behind the Global Citizen Festival in Central Park that asked festivalgoers to earn points via a mobile and Web-based platform. The event secured more than $1.3 billion in pledged donations, while also spreading its message of social action via social media. Trainer will discuss how the idea for the festival came about and the lessons he and the team learned, as well as how other fund-raising organizations can innovate by taking advantage of new technology.

Thom Casadonte, head of global events, Bloomberg Link

Corporate meetings have a reputation for being dull. And meetings held by financial institutions are known for being even less exciting. Unless you work for Bloomberg L.P. Instead of hotel ballrooms, its meetings take place in unexpected venues like the New Museum. Instead of floral centerpieces, attendees take home bowls of live fish. Rather than being isolated in greenrooms, speakers are interacting with guests in open lounges. In this session Thom Casadonte, head of global events for Bloomberg Link, the company’s executive conference division, will talk about a variety of innovative approaches to make meetings more vibrant, dynamic, and productive.

 

Jeff Boedges, co-owner, SoHo Experiential

When it comes to brand advocacy today, superfans are the new secret weapon. Smart marketers are tuning into what their most active, engaged consumers are doing, and they’re finding ways to leverage the relationship as a promotional tool. In this session, Jeff Boedges from New York’s SoHo Experiential will discuss how to identify, recruit, and inspire local key influencers that planners can’t afford to ignore, plus examine best practices from the agency’s programs developed for its roster of international clients including Rémy Martin, the Macallan, and Bravo.

 

 

Tamara Mendelsohn, vice president of marketing, Eventbrite

Leading online retailer Amazon is known for its “larger game plan” and strategic vision that has helped it become a multibillion-dollar company. In this session, Tamara Mendelsohn will share how event marketers should think about the event registration experience like the online retailer, because driving registrations and ticket sales is as much a science as it is an art. Mendelsohn will share tips on how top companies like Amazon grow their sales and how these strategies can be used to boost attendance at your next event.

Tiki Barber, co-founder, Thuzio

Having a celebrity speaker talk from the podium is a thing of the past. Today’s audiences want more engaging, interactive, and unique experiences at their events, and creative planners are responding. In this session, former New York Giants running back Tiki Barber will share how the landscape of celebrity bookings has changed. From bringing in local sports heroes for a sales team’s ping-pong battle, to arranging for out-of-town clients to play golf with their local childhood hero, Barber will share the story of how he started Thuzio, lessons he’s learned at events, and the new ways to engage celebrities to create authentic event experiences.

 

Speakers

 

By Lauren Matthews | Posted November 1, 2013, 11:41 AM EDT

NEW YORK The BizBash IdeaFest New York took place at Javits Center North, the north hall of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, on Wednesday with a roster of offerings that included speakers such as former New York Giants running back and Thuzio co-founder Tiki Barber, event designer Bryan Rafanelli, and Bloomberg’s head of global events Thom Casadonte at the Event Innovation Forum; an early morning workshop series; and a lively show floor filled with new products, event services, entertainment, and venue ideas. Here’s a look at some of the top event design, decor, and rental ideas highlighted at the show.

– See more at: http://www.bizbash.com/19-new-design-and-rental-ideas-from-the-bizbash-ideafest-new-york/toronto/story/27390#sthash.7In0zavb.C80kaawj.dpuf

By Lauren Matthews | Posted November 1, 2013, 11:41 AM EDT

NEW YORK The BizBash IdeaFest New York took place at Javits Center North, the north hall of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, on Wednesday with a roster of offerings that included speakers such as former New York Giants running back and Thuzio co-founder Tiki Barber, event designer Bryan Rafanelli, and Bloomberg’s head of global events Thom Casadonte at the Event Innovation Forum; an early morning workshop series; and a lively show floor filled with new products, event services, entertainment, and venue ideas. Here’s a look at some of the top event design, decor, and rental ideas highlighted at the show.

– See more at: http://www.bizbash.com/19-new-design-and-rental-ideas-from-the-bizbash-ideafest-new-york/toronto/story/27390#sthash.7In0zavb.C80kaawj.dpuf

11 New Rules of Trade Show Marketing

In the last 10 years or so there have been fundamental technological and economic changes that have rewritten the trade show rule book. Not rules like how close to the aisle your exhibit structure can be or how loud your music can play, but rules about what it takes to succeed on the show floor.

Some changes evolved slowly over the years, and some were wrenched into place almost at once. Here’s what’s changed – and how you can adapt to those changes:

1. More Uncertainty: Economic uncertainty has lasted for years, and shows little signs of going away. This makes your top company executives reluctant to commit early to trade shows, and buy capital-intensive larger exhibits. You have to balance their need for financial flexibility by waiting longer to commit to shows and vendors, and yet still avoid more expensive rush charges. (I sincerely wish you luck walking that tightrope.) Rental exhibits help avoid capital expenses, too.

2. Measurement A Must: Gone are the days when you could end the show by saying to your boss, “We had a good show, didn’t we?” and that would be enough. Your trade show spending is being compared to more explicitly measurable electronic marketing mediums. So even if your trade show is producing greater results, if you don’t prove it with real numbers, such as ROI ratios or sales generated, it didn’t happen in the minds of your bosses, and your budget is in jeopardy.

3. Trade Shows Stronger Than Some Expected: Trade shows are one of the winners in the marketing media wars. Along with electronic media, trade shows have retained a greater share of B2B marketing budgets than print and direct mail. That’s because trade shows still provide what all marketers want: face time with lots of real buyers in one place. So be sure to take full advantage of your face time at shows, because it’s harder to reach buyers elsewhere.

4. More Knowledgeable Buyers: Attendees now look up potential suppliers on the internet before the show, so they arrive already knowing about your products. If they visit you, it’s because they want to know if your product really does what you say it can, who your people are and how trustworthy your company is. You will need to provide more hospitality, have more space for longer meetings, and bring people who can answer detailed questions, but also deepen relationships.

5. Pre-Show Promotions Harder: Pre-show promotions with traditional media don’t bring in as many attendees as they used to. Your pre-show mailers get ignored, emails get deleted, calls get screened, and magazine ads are left unread. Buyers are just too busy before the show to pay much attention to your pre-show promotions. To get attendees into your booth, you have to do more at-show promotions, to grab their attention when they are focused on the show.

6. Social Media Rising: Social media is where people now spend their time. Fortunately, social media is not a replacement for trade shows, but is a great conduit to people who have tuned out of direct mail, email, ads, and phone calls. Social media can also help you extend the conversation that peaked at the show. Your activities in your booth (new products, product demonstrations, customer testimonials) are great content to share via social media after the show.

7. Which Promotions Work Now: Trade show attendees may walk the show floor, but it’s harder to get them out of the aisle and into your booth space. The internet has given them control of the buying process, so they don’t like to easily give it up at a show, either. So your promotions have to be better. To get them into your booth, you have to give them one of these three things: an exchange of value, an experience, or learning. Otherwise, they will keep walking.

8. Vertical Market Messages Love Flat Screens: In the old days, exhibitors would design their exhibit with a main message for the company overall, but swap out a portion of the exhibit graphics to customize their message for different industry trade shows. Now, with the price of large LED flat screen monitors about 25% of what they were when introduced (and lighter, too), exhibitors tailor their vertical market messages with pixels, not printed graphics.

9. Even Island Exhibits Are Lighter: While portable trade show displays have been the standard for decades, the high cost of shipping and especially drayage (up 488% from 1982 to 2010) have caused big-booth exhibitors to try to lighten their load, too. The improved style and flexibility of metal frame exhibit systems and the brilliant, sharp fabric graphics of today are taking over many trade shows.

10. Unqualified Leads Will Be Ignored: Your overworked sales force no longer has the time to work through a pile of business cards. Give them basically a list, and after several calls they will stop calling, if they start at all. You have to give them more qualifying information about each lead than just contact information, and you should only give them the qualified leads that are ready to talk to a sales person – or at least tell them which leads are the higher quality ones, so they can start there first.

11. Technology Everywhere: Technology has infiltrated trade show marketing. From iPads to enhance one-on-one interactive conversations and revolutionize lead management to flat screen integrated into exhibit designs to wireless internet hubs, and social media to entice booth visitors, technology is everywhere on the show floor. That means you have to know the difference between an HDMI and a VGA cable, a .csv and a .txt file, and a wireless or a hardwired internet connection. Because even in face-to-face marketing, technology boosts results.

If your trade show marketing isn’t as effective as it used to be, see if you haven’t adapted your program to the new rules of the show hall. Take these new rules into account, and rejuvenate and enhance your program and your results.

 

Link to the original article at Skyline Trade Show Tips

September 24, 2013

Portable Display – Patented By The Displayers

Can your exhibit company say they patented the ‘Portable Display’?

 

Patent drawing

The 1952 Patent Reads:

“This invention relates to display apparatus more particularly to a display which may be knocked down or collapsed for packaging in a relatively light, easy-to-handle packing case. The new apparatus comprises a plurality demountable support panels capable of being assembled together to form a display screen in a variety of specific arrangements. Each panel is made up of four-lightweight tubular frame members made preferably of a hard aluminum alloy.

 

A packing case, preferably . of lightweight ply wood, is included and is of a size sufficient to contain our entire display apparatus in knocked- down or collapsed condition. The packing . case however performs another function and that is to support a collapsible counter surface. A drape or cover, preferably of the same material as the curtains for the support panels, is provided to cover the counter supported by the packing case and to extend to the floor thereby hiding from view the open packing case and resulting in the composite counter appearing to be a table.”

 

 

US2587698.pdfUS2587698.pdf

 

 

 

 

Managing Great Expectations

Did you ever ask for an outrageously expensive brand-name toy for your birthday – and then received a generic version that just didn’t have the same cachet? And then found that you couldn’t bring yourself to play much with it because it just didn’t live up to your expectations? Well, end-users of new software systems often feel the same way. In fact, failure to manage user expectations is one of the biggest risks to project success when project managers are implementing new software systems. Research demonstrates that users who harbor unrealistic expectations are more likely to be dissatisfied with the project outcome and less likely to take best advantage of it.

Fortunately, this is one risk factor that project managers can influence and minimize, according to Professor Stacie Petter at the University of Omaha at Nebraska. The key, she says, is to work with the users and keep them involved, establish leadership and gain user trust.

Petter recently completed a research project that defines practical tactics that project managers can use to align user expectations with project delivery.

She and another researcher interviewed project managers from a global IT and consulting company with more than 75,000 employees across almost 50 countries.

Petter asked each project manager to recall two projects in which they faced challenges in managing user expectations – one that they managed successfully and one that they felt wasn’t successfully managed.

She then analyzed their responses, drawing out successful tactics for involving the user, establishing leadership and gaining trust – the three strategies that she discovered are key to managing user expectations. Her findings:

Involve the Users

“Every textbook,” says Petter, “advocates involving the users, but it’s often done badly. People think that one meeting with the users is enough.” The value of this research is that it proposes actionable tactics. Project managers should ask themselves how well they do the following:

  • Communicate. Get users involved early in the project and keep them involved throughout.
  • If the user base is large, create small user groups.
  • Listen to them, ask questions and give credit for good suggestions.
  • Let users make tough choices about budget, schedule and/or functionality.
  • Recognize their concerns about change and help them to feel at ease.
  • Build positive momentum and continue it throughout the development phase.
  • Offer training, help desks and other support functions to maintain comfort and involvement during implementation

Establish Leadership

“There are two types of leadership that need to be exhibited during a software project to properly manage user expectations,” says Petter. “A project champion for the users and a project manager/leader for the team.”

The project champion, she says, helps to manage expectations by promoting the project vision, educating users about the software’s values and benefits, and by rallying the ‘troops’ and explaining how they can assist. One interviewee recommended choosing someone who is influential, well respected and well connected within the client organization.

The project manager, says Petter, must lead both project colleagues and users along the correct path. “To do this, the project manager needs to be knowledgeable about the business problem, the system’s technical aspects and also project management.”

For a successful outcome, she says, a project manager should also:

  • Articulate a clear view of the project
  • Ensure you have a strong project champion to share the vision
  • Educate users about the value and benefits of the system, while also ensuring they have reasonable expectations
  • Obtain buy-in from the primary, or most vocal, stakeholders and work outward
  • Don’t oversell the project
  • Motivate the project team to complete on time

Finally, says Petter, the project manager needs fortitude. “Be strong with users,” she says. “If they ask for additional functionality, it’s important not to simply agree to every request.” Instead, initiate a formal change-request process and educate users about the consequences of any changes.

Establish Trust

Project managers who involve users and develop a relationship with them will be on their way to establishing trust. Petter notes that there are other important tactics for gaining and maintaining trust:

  • Use clear terminology. For instance, inform users they will see a prototype in one week, not ‘soon’.
  • Be willing to share both good and bad news throughout the project – don’t leave others to disseminate such news.

Overall, says Petter, “the tactics for managing user expectations that we’ve identified in our research aren’t complex. They’re really quite simple.”

“Yet if software project managers truly understood and followed these tactics, managing user expectations would not be among one of the three highest-ranking risks in software projects.”

Source: Petter, S. “Managing user expectations on software projects: Lessons from the trenches”, International Journal of Project Management, 26:7, Oct 2008 pp. 700-712.

 

PMPerspectives.org

© Reich, Gemino, Sauer (2008)

This article was reposted in 2013 with minor typographic corrections. 

Posted: 11-Apr-2013 | View Highlights | Learning Toolkit |  Bookmark / Share This Article

Cruise Shipping Miami

March 10 – 13, 2014 – Miami Beach Convention Center

Why Exhibit?

Cruise Shipping Miami offers you the opportunity to be part of the industry’s most authoritative professional showcase. CSM 2014 will attract a broad range of industry players and deliver to you the audience you are looking for–cruise industry buyers and decision makers–unlocking business potential across all product sectors.
Download sales brochure for more information.

Click here to view interesting facts from our 2013 show!

For more information about exhibiting, click here.
Sales & Marketing Support for Exhibitors
Exhibiting is the first step to increasing your exposure in the marketplace. But how can you stand out from the crowd? The Cruise Shipping Miami team can work with you to find the right package to achieve your company goals at the show. Whether it be a new product launch, brand recognition or greater exposure to cruise lines, we can help. READ MORE >

Networking Opportunities
Key networking opportunities throughout the event provide exhibitors access to influential cruise line executives, expert conference speakers, executives from the CLIA and FCCA cruise associations, and special guests.  Cruise Shipping Miami is the one time every year where members from every facet of the cruise industry come together in one location for networking.

Why Attend?

Visitors looking for one-stop shopping find all they need at Cruise Shipping Miami. As an attendee at CSM 2014 you will have the opportunity to:

  • Source new products on tradeshow floor, filled with over 900 exhibitors. View 2013 exhibitor directory.
  • Stay ahead of the curve by attending the 4-day educational conference program.
  • Network with industry leaders from all facets of the industry

Join the 10,000 cruise industry professionals that attend CSM and discover why this is the must attend event of the year.

Cruise Shipping Miami – the Cruise Industry’s Premier Global Event!

Register your interest to attend the 2014 30th anniversary event.

Cruise Shipping Miami is exclusively supported by:

  

 

Cruise Shipping Miami 2013 At a Glance

Find out what’s happening during over the course of four days at Cruise Shipping Miami, March 11-14.

Monday, March 11

TIME


CONFERENCE & EVENTS

 8:00am

 Registration opens

 9:30am – 3:00pm

 World Cruise Tourism Summit Workshops
 Room D237
 11:30am – 1:00pm  China Session
Room D235
 6:30pm – 8:30pm  VIP/Speaker Reception

Tuesday, March 12

TIME

  CONFERENCE & EVENTS

EXPO
 8:00am  Registration opens Exhibit Hall Open
9:00am – 6:00pm
 9:30am – 11:30am  Opening Session: State of the Industry
 Location: Palm Ballroom
 1:00pm – 1:20pm  Green Cruising – Presented by Blue Ocean Solutions
 Hall B – Green Cruising Showcase
 1:30pm – 1:50pm  Green Cruising – Presented by Scanship 
Hall B – Green Cruising Showcase
 2:30pm – 2:50pm  Green Cruising – Presented by E-Amenities
Hall B – Green Cruising Showcase
 3:00pm – 4:30pm  Cruise Shipping Conference
(concurrent sessions)
 3:00pm – 5:00pm  Coast Guard Forum
Room D233 
 6:00pm Presidents of the Member Cruise Lines Welcome Reception
Location: Skywalk

 

 

 

Wednesday, March 13

TIME CONFERENCE & EVENTS EXPO
 8:00am  Registration opens Exhibit Hall Open
9:00am – 6:00pm
 9:30am – 11:00am  Cruise Shipping Conference
(concurrent sessions)
 11:30am – 11:50am Green Cruising – Presented by ABB Inc. Marine and Turbocharging
 Hall B – Green Cruising Showcase
 2:00pm – 2:20pm Green Cruising – Presented by Eniram Inc.
 Hall B – Green Cruising Showcase
 2:30pm – 2:50pm  Green Cruising – Presented by Warsila North America
Hall B – Green Cruising Showcase
 3:00pm – 4:30pm  Cruise Shipping Conference
(concurrent sessions)
 6:30pm FCCA Gala Cocktail Reception & Dinner
Palm Ballroom

 

 

 

Thursday, March 14

TIME  
CONFERENCE & EVENTS

EXPO

 8:30am  Registration opens Exhibit Hall Open
9:00am – 4:00pm
 9:30am – 11:00am  Cruise Shipping Conference
(concurrent sessions)
10:00am – 11:30am  Travel Agent ThursdayCANCELED
 1:00pm – 5:00pm  Care Awareness Training – Room D233 
 Raynel Gonzalez
 Manager, CareTeam, Carnival Cruise Lines
 3:00pm – 4:30pm  Cruise Shipping Conference
(concurrent sessions)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Note: Agenda and programs are subject to change anytime without notice. Please check back regularly for the most current information.

 

Cruise Shipping Miami FAQ’sQuestions? Email: Info@cruiseshippingmiami.com

How do I register for the conference?
Register online Now- click Here!

How will I get my badge?
Pre-registered, fully paid attendees with U.S. addresses will receive their badges by mail if pre-registered by the date noted on the registration form. Otherwise, badge pick-up will be on-site.

Can I register for one session only?
We do not offer a single session program.

How many exhibitor badges can I request for exhibit booth personnel?
Four badges per 10′ x 10′ booth are permitted free of charge.

Is carpet included in my booth package?
No, carpet is not included in the exhibit package. All booths must be carpeted or have some other form of flooring. Exhibitors can rent carpet by the square foot through the Official Service Contractor, Freeman Decorating. Carpet color choices and pricing are included in the hardcopy Exhibitor Manual.

Can exhibitors attend the conference?
Yes, only you must register for the conference separately. You will receive a conference delegate badge that must be worn to gain entrance into the conference sessions. All exhibiting company personnel will be offered a reduced rate.

Are there special networking functions Exhibitors can attend?
Functions include the Welcoming Reception hosted by the Presidents of the member lines of the Florida-Caribbean Cruise Association and the Cruise Lines International Association, the Gala dinner benefitting the FCCA Foundation for the Caribbean (separate ticket purchase required), and cruise ship visits (subject to availability). Full details will be made available closer to the show date.

Can I bring my spouse and/or children?
A spouse must register as a visitor in order to gain admittance on to the exhibition floor only. Because of insurance liability, no one under 16 years of age will be admitted.

What is the show attire?
The attire for the conference and functions ranges from normal business to business casual. The FCCA Gala is formal attire, black-tie optional. Now business attire.

Is there shuttle bus service?
Shuttle bus service to the convention center is currently not provided, but check with your hotel to see if they offer a specific service.

What is the address of the Miami Beach Convention Center?
The Miami Beach Convention Center, Hall C/D entrance, is located at 1901 Convention Center Drive, Miami Beach, FL 33139. Hall A entrance is located on Washington Avenue.

Cruise Shipping Miami 2014 to Mark 30th Anniversary

 

MIAMI (May 9, 2013) — When the next Cruise Shipping Miami convenes March 10, 2014, it will mark the 30th anniversary of the industry’s signature annual event. Owner and organizer UBM Live is planning a tribute to the cruise business’ past, present and future to mark the three-decade milestone.
Building on the success of its 2013 introduction, next year’s show will feature an expanded Sustainable Cruising program, where destinations and technical communities share innovative solutions for environmental issues with the cruise industry. The Amusement and Entertainment Technology Pavilion also will return and a newly developed food and beverage program will be implemented.
“While Cruise Shipping Miami 2014 marks its 30th anniversary, the show continues to evolve in terms of highlighting trends and showcasing the latest products and services for the cruise enterprise,” said Daniel Read, director of UBM Live’s Cruise Portfolio. “This event will continue to be the place where all sectors of the global cruise industry gather to do business.”
The 2013 Cruise Shipping Miami event that concluded March 14 saw another memorable year. With a record 11,000 attendees from 136 countries and more than 900 exhibitors from 123 countries — including 93 first-timers — the three-day exhibition covered all four halls of the Miami Beach Convention Center.
The four-day conference program featured a series of 26 sessions and panel discussions on a revamped schedule that provided more time for networking and visiting the trade show.
The response from exhibitors was overwhelmingly positive, according to Read, with more than 40 percent noting they signed new business during the show. 
“The show offers a lot of networking opportunities,” said Valerie Conan, cruise director for the Le Havre Tourist Board. “Thanks to CSM, year by year and step by step I have built relationships with key people of the cruise industry.”
Delegates, exhibitors and cruise executives offered enthusiastic feedback.
“Cruise Shipping Miami is a significant event for our industry where every stakeholder in the cruise sector comes to one place to gather, to talk about common interests and common problems, so we can move our industry forward,” said Rick Sasso, president of MSC Cruises.
Cruise Shipping Miami 2014 is scheduled for March 10-13 at the Miami Beach Convention Center. 
MEDIA CONTACT: Buck Banks, 305-461-3300, buck@newmanpr.com
CONVENTION CONTACT: UBM Live, 300 American Metro Blvd., Suite 125, Hamilton NJ 08619 USA
Phone: 609-759-4700; fax: 609-759-4774; info@cruiseshippingmiami.com
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Cruise Shipping Miami would like to thank our 2013 Sponsors!

 

Atout France Oncam Grandeye
Fidelio Cruise MTN Satellite Communications
Maritime Communications Partner Cruises News Media Group
Port Miami Lufthansa Systems
Cruise Gateway North Sea North Sea Region Programme
PPI Group  

 

 

Our Work @ The Armory Show 2013

 The Displayers is proud to have created the exhibits for:

 

Andy Warhol at Gagosian (Booth #903)

 

 

The Armory Show is at Pier 94, 12th Avenue at 55th Street, through Sunday March 10th.  For more information, visit: www.thearmoryshow.com

 

We look forward to hearing from you and discussing how we can bring your projects to life.  Enjoy the Show!

 

Other art projects The Displayers has created can be found at our:

 

Gagosian booth - Warhol installation - The Armory Show  2013
Liz Magic Laser - The Armory Show 2013 - catalog cover revised

 

Architectural Digest Home Design Show – 2013

The Displayers has participated in the development of the Architectural Digest Home Design Show since its inception 12 years ago, working with Architectural Digest and MMPI (Merchandise Mart Properties) to develop elements of the show including the entrance, signage, the AD 100 Area, lounge and other sponsorship areas including Lincoln’s installation.

 

Architectural Digest and MMPI have recommended The Displayers to exhibitors including: 

Artistic Tile | Cortina Leather | Dennis Miller Associates | Ethan Allen | Exquisite Surfaces | Holly Hunt | KitchenAid | Lefroy Brooks | MauraStarr | Moore & Giles | Scalamandre | OrientNJ | Stamberg Aferiat Architecture | Stark Carpet

 

The Displayers management and exhibit installation services to many of the shows exhibitors in addition to exhibit design, construction, graphics, shipping, storage and maintenance.

 

We hope the below information is helpful, and if assistance is needed, we are happy to help or provide guidance.  We invite your questions.

_______________________________________

Overview

We are excited to welcome you to the 12th annual Architectural Digest Home Design Show. Here you’ll explore the latest ideas and products for the home — from furniture and lighting to kitchens and baths. Whether starting from scratch or searching for that single object to finish a room, the Show promises to introduce you to something you simply have to bring home.

 

Show Hours and Admission

March 21-24, 2013

  • Thursday: 11AM – 7PM  – (Open to Trade and Preview Guests)
  • Friday & Saturday: 11AM – 7PM – (Open to the Public)
  • Sunday: 10AM – 6PM  – (Open to the Public)

We are thrilled to announce that DINING BY DESIGN New York 2013, the premier fundraising event for DIFFA: Design Industries Foundation Fighting AIDS, will be located adjacent to the Architectural Digest Home Design Show at Pier 94. Be sure to experience this spectacle of table environments created in a variety of magnificent styles.  This portion of the show will be closed to the public on Thursday at 3:00 p.m. and on Saturday at 4:00 p.m.

SHOP.BE INSPIRED.CELEBRATE DESIGN.

A world of design inspiration awaits at the 12th annual Architectural Digest Home Design Show. Explore the latest products for the home. Shop from new and established brands. Get inspired by new ideas and insight from top talents in the industry.

  • Exhibits from 420+ exhibitors with over 500 premium brands
  • Keynote Presentation by Margaret Russell, Architectural Digest Editor in Chief
  • Design seminars presented by The New York Times
  • Culinary demonstrations and tastings
  • 40+ amazing table installations at DIFFA’s DINING BY DESIGN NY

 

About the AD Show:

When and where will the 2013 Show take place?
The 2013 Show will take place March 21-24th, 2013 at Pier 94 in New York City (55th and West Side Highway).

How many people can we expect to attend the Show in 2013?
The Show has been growing in both attendance and exhibitor base for the past several years. In 2012, over 43,800 attendees visited the Show.

Who attends the AD Show?
The AD Show draws a mix of the design trade (architects, interior designers and decorators, showroom principals, buyers) and the high end consumer/homeowner. Although the Show draws an international audience, most of the attendees are from the United States, specifically the Northeast region and the east coast.

Is the Show open to both the design trade and the public?
Yes. The AD Show is open to the design trade (architects, interior designers and decorators, showroom principals, buyers) and the high end consumer/homeowner. Thursday is open only to the design trade (and VIP consumer guests) while Friday, Saturday, and Sunday are open to the trade and the public.

 

Move in / Move out:

 

What are the days and times for set-up & moving out?

Set-up will take place:

• Tuesday, March 19, 8 a.m.-6 p.m.

• Wednesday, March 20, 8 a.m.-5 p.m..

 

All Exhibitors must be moved out by Monday, March 25th. Additional details will be included in the Exhibitor Manual

 

 

About Us

Management Team

MMPI is one of the largest trade show producers in the country. Our competent staff is fully capable of all aspects of trade show management.

 

Mark Falanga
President
Susan McCullough
Senior Vice President

General Information

Merchandise Mart Properties, Inc.
7 West 34th Street
Suite 1027
New York, NY 10001
212.644.0833

 

Driving Directions

How to get to Pier 94:
55th Street and the West Side Highway
New York, NY 10019

From the North (Westchester, Connecticut, Massachusetts):
95 South (via the Cross-Bronx Expressway) to the George Washington Bridge. At approach to bridge, bear right to lower level. Exit at the last exit in New York-Parkway South-9A. Follow Parkway South (Henry Hudson Parkway/West Side Highway) to 54th Street. Turn right. Go one block to entrance and turn right.

Saw Mill River Parkway/Henry Hudson Parkway/Route 9A:
Follow 9A South to 55th Street. Turn Left. Go one block to entrance and turn right.

New York State Thruway/Major Deegan Expressway/Route 87:
Major Deegan Expressway to George Washington Bridge exit. Stay in the right lane towards lower level. Exit at the last exit in New York Parkway South 9A. Follow Parkway South (Henry Hudson Parkway/West Side Highway) to 55th Street. Turn left. Go one block to entrance and turn right.

From the South (New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Etc.):
95 North to the New Jersey Turnpike, Exit at the Lincoln Tunnel. When exiting the tunnel, bear left. Follow signs for uptown or northbound to 55th Street. Turn left onto 55th Street until you reach 11th Avenue and turn left.

George Washington Bridge to Parkway South:
9A. At 55th Street, turn right. Go one block to Pier 94 New York entrance.

From Queens and Long Island:
Queens -Midtown Tunnel: Take Southbound or Downtown exit to 34th Street and turn right on 12th Avenue to 55th Street where you turn left.

Queensboro/59th Street Bridge:
Take 60/61st Street Exit. Go to 5th Avenue alongside Central Park to 59th Street. Turn right onto 59th Street to 12th Avenue and turn left. Go five blocks to the 55th Street and turn right.

From Staten Island:
Verrazano – Narrows Bridge eastbound to the Gowanus Expressway, to the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. Exit westbound to the West Side Highway/12th Avenue. At 55th Street, turn left. Go one block to entrance.

By Public Transportation

Piers 92/94 can be reached by NYC Transit Authority via 8th Avenue subway, E or C trains to 50th street, then via M50 Bus line (please note that the M50 Bus does not run on the weekends). Also, bus lines M16 and M42 provide service to 42nd Street and 12 Avenue. For subway and bus information and schedules, call (718) 330-1234.

NYC x Design

Christine Quinn on Tapping New York’s Vein of Design

New York Times – Currents | Events / By JULIE LASKY / Published: February 13, 2013

After months of vigorous planning, New York will have a 12-day celebration of design this spring extending over all five boroughs. NYC x Design will run from May 10 to 21, to coincide with the International Contemporary Furniture Fair at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center and Frieze New York art fair on Randalls Island. Pronounced “NYC by Design” and interdisciplinary in scope, it will present the work of local designers and architects in museum exhibitions, conferences, studio tours, showroom displays, pop-up stores, art installations and a design film festival.

Tony Cenicola/The New York Times NYTCREDIT: Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

The goal is greater visibility for an industry with untapped economic potential, said City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn (left), whose office is leading the project with a steering committee of more than 30 design leaders from business, civic and cultural groups. “We have more designers in New York City than any other U.S. city, but we do a terrible job promoting them in their totality,” she said.

Ideally, the festival would seed itself over time and multiply the number of New York design jobs, she said. In the future, “if we’re doing it right, there’s more set designers in Brooklyn and Queens, more furniture designers in Brooklyn and more jewelry designers in the South Bronx and Lower East Side.”

Festival events can be found at NYCxDesign.com, a Web site that was introduced this week. The program will continue to be updated.

 

Link to The New York Times Article

ESPN – Display Cases

The Displayers have designed and will be constructing Memorabilia Display cases to fit within ESPN’s beautiful and modern offices set within an Armory. The design will allow for a very transparent display to blend into the environment.  Custom metalwork will mount and support a combination of acrylic and glass panels that will partially covered in vinyl graphics.

Stay tuned for more and photos!

Glamour Wall – Video

For Fashion Week rather than creating a Pop-up store, Glamour Magazine created a Pop-up wall co-sponsored with CO Bigalow.  The event and wall introduced Glamour’s use of QR code on the Pop-up Wall and online.  We are grateful to Glamour Magazine for allowing The Displayers to share this video.

 

The Displayers we responsible for the design, construction and installation on the Pop-up wall.  During Fall 2012 New York Fashion Week, Glamour was all about instant beauty gratification with our Glamour Apothecary Wall, in NYC’s Meatpacking District. Readers lined up to shop the wall using their mobile wallet, the Glamour Friends & Fans app. Take a look at how we made it all happen, from construction to the big unveiling.

 

Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum

Arts | Connecticut

Mournful, Angry Views of Ireland’s Famine

A Review of Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum, in Hamden

Mark Stanczak/Quinnipiac University

PROCESSION A print of a grieving family is projected on a video wall. By SYLVIANE GOLD / Published: January 4, 2013

Most museums that bear witness to a nightmare, like Yad Vashem in Jerusalem or the Peace Memorial Museum in Hiroshima, are hard to visit. Caught between our need to understand the history and our wish to turn away from the horror, we don’t quite know where or how to look.

But Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum, which opened in October in Hamden, is a different kind of place. For one thing, the event it commemorates, the Irish potato famine, happened too long ago for news cameras to capture piled-up corpses and harrowing testimony. It lacks shocking artifacts, like Hiroshima’s charred, stopped pocket watches. And its contemporary accounts, seen through the period gloss of antique typefaces and hand-drawn images, provide safe distance rather than harsh immediacy.

The museum, a project of Quinnipiac University, presents a selection of these prints and periodicals, as well as letters and other documents, responding in real time to Ireland’s starving populace and deserted villages. But in its inaugural exhibition, it lets later artists, both from Ireland and from the countries in which famine victims settled, do most of the talking. This has the surprising effect of simultaneously softening and sharpening the gruesome facts.

What the Irish now call An Gorta Mor (the Great Hunger) began in 1845, when a deadly fungus attacked the island’s staple food. In tandem with the government in England, which could have mitigated the disaster but found many excuses to limit its role, the potato blight brought Ireland a growing tragedy of slow starvation, rampant disease and escalating despair that did not abate until 1852, by which time a million or more had died and some two million had fled.

It took 150 years after the famine’s worst year, Black ’47, for England to acknowledge some blame for it, and nearly as long for Irish artists to begin grappling with its legacy. So the strongest work in the museum is modern, varying widely in material and ranging in tone from mournful to polemical.

Margaret Lyster Chamberlain’s moving bronze, “The Leave-Taking,” is distinctly in the first key, with its 17 bedraggled figures crowding a ship’s gangway that leads to a new life in America — if they survive the voyage. Another striking bronze, John Behan’s “Famine Cart,” is even more blunt: a skeletal horse drags both itself and a wagon loaded with emaciated cadavers to the burial ground. In “An Gorta Mor” Robert Ballagh uses stained glass for a before-and-after triptych, in which a bucolic farm scene and an eviction flank a half-thriving, half-rotting potato plant. If Mr. Ballagh refers to the Catholic Church in his choice of medium, Kieran Tuohy exploits the Irish landscape itself for his sculpture of a “Lonely Widow,” carved in bog oak.

The painters also defy categorization. Lilian Lucy Davidson’s haunting “Burying the Child” packs an intense emotional wallop, with the central figure leaning into his shovel almost as if he were still digging potatoes; but it is a straightforward image of loss. Nearby, Hughie O’Donoghue addresses the hard times in an abstract watercolor, “On Our Knees.” And in “Black ’47,” Micheal Farrell takes an allegorical approach, depicting a courtroom in which five Irish skeletons emerge from a coffin to accuse Britain, in the reviled person of Charles E. Trevelyan, who ran the government’s disastrously inadequate relief efforts.

“There is scarcely a woman of the peasant class in the west of Ireland whose culinary art exceeds the boiling of a potato,” Trevelyan sniffed in his 1848 book about Britain’s blame-the-victim policies, betraying the contempt with which he viewed the “ignorant and excitable” people he was ostensibly trying to help.

This contempt is visible also in the many famine images of apelike Irish peasants in British journals of the day. They are plastered floor to ceiling, along with illustrated newspaper pages from elsewhere, on a circular enclosure that surrounds the viewer and conveys not just specific horrors from the famine years but also the intense public interest in the Irish suffering abroad and the endless, useless wrangling of the political classes.

It calls to mind the debates that have been raging here and in Europe since 2008, circling around the same old issues of austerity, socialism and responsibility. Trevelyan thought his harsh remedies would lead to a smarter, happier, more efficient, more responsible future. In the galleries of Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum we come face to face with what really happened.

Inaugural Exhibition, Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum (Musaem An Ghorta Mhoir), 3011 Whitney Avenue, Hamden. For additional information: ighm.nfshost.com/ or (203) 582-6500.

New York Times Article

Coca Cola Pavilion – 1964 World’s Fair

 

Jack Lescoulie tours the Coca-Cola pavilion at the New York World’s Fair and receives a guided tour from Barry Howard, Vice President of the Displayers Corp, which created the pavilion.

They walk into a contemplative garden. Fountain seen with the Taj Mahal in the background. Howard notes they’ve added fragrance to make the setting as realistic as possible. They enter a Bavarian inn. Lescoulie mentions the scent of pine.

Howard says they can control the climate, as well as the sounds and smells. They enter a Cambodian rain forest which includes a recreation of the Ankhor Watt temple. Howard notes they had to get rid of a snake because it looked too real.

The sound of a bullfrog is heard. They step onto the deck of the S.S. Brazil with a view of the Bay of Copacabana. Engine noise is heard. View through window into dining room that’s only four by six feet but appears much larger due to mirrors. (Link)

http://www.antiquesnavigator.com/ebay/images/2013/300851793660.jpg

Coca-Cola Pavilion

Join us at the Coca-Cola Pavilion for The Pause that Refreshes! Come along on a Global Holiday where you’ll experience the sights, sounds and smells of five world locations where you can enjoy an ice cold Coke!

Pepsi Cola Pavilion presents Walt Disney's It's a Small World at the New York 1964 World's Fair.

Pepsi Cola Pavilion presents Walt Disney’s It’s a Small World at the New York 1964 World’s Fair.

Roland "Rolly" Crump with model and sketch for his Tower of the Four Winds for the Pepsi-Cola Pavilion, "It's a Small World" at the 1964-65 New York World's Fair.

 

Roland “Rolly” Crump with model and sketch for his Tower of the Four Winds for the Pepsi-Cola Pavilion, “It’s a Small World” at the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair.

 

The Javits Center Information

The Javits Center is host to many leading conventions, trade shows, consumer shows and special events. There is no better world stage than the Javits Center on which to produce, exhibit or attend an event.

Whatever brings you here, we are committed to making your experience truly rewarding. And as a destination city, nothing quite compares to New York City as the finance, entertainment, publishing and fashion capital of  the world.

______________________________________________________________________________________

Directions to The Javits Center

By Car 
By Truck

Getting to the Javits Center couldn’t be easier. To get here, just follow these simple directions.

By Car

While there is no parking at the javits Center are many parking garages throughout the Javits Center vicinity. See parking for locations and phone numbers of convenient parking near us. We are located on 11th Avenue between 34th and 39th Streets.

From the North (Westchester, Connecticut, Massachusetts)
95 South (via the Cross-Bronx Expressway) to the George Washington Bridge. At approach to bridge, bear right to lower level. Exit at the last exit in New York–Parkway South–9A. Follow Parkway South (Henry Hudson Parkway/West Side Highway) to 42nd Street. Turn left. Go one block to 11th Avenue and turn right.

Saw Mill River Parkway/Henry Hudson Parkway/Route 9A: Follow 9A South to 42nd Street. Turn Left. Go one block to 11th Avenue and turn right.

New York State Thruway/Major Deegan Expressway/Route 87: Major Deegan Expressway to George Washington Bridge exit. Stay in right lane towards lower level. Exit at the last exit in New York–Parkway South–9A. Follow Parkway South (Henry Hudson Parkway/West Side Highway) to 42nd Street. Turn left. Go one block to 11th Avenue and turn right.

From the South (New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, etc.)
95 North to the New Jersey Turnpike. Exit at the Lincoln Tunnel. When exiting the tunnel, bear left. Follow signs for uptown or northbound to 42nd Street. Turn left onto 42nd Street until you reach 11th Avenue and turn left.

George Washington Bridge to Parkway South– 9A. At 42nd Street, turn left. Go one block to 11th Avenue and turn right.

From Queens and Long Island
Queens-Midtown Tunnel: Take Southbound or Downtown exit to 34th Street and turn right. Go west and turn right on 11th Avenue.

Queensboro/59th Street Bridge: Take 60/61st Street Exit. Go to 5th Avenue alongside Central Park to 59th Street. Turn right onto 59th Street to 7th Avenue and turn left. Go two blocks to 57th Street and turn right. Follow 57th Street to 11th Avenue and turn left. The Center is between 34th and 38th streets.

From Staten Island
Verrazano-Narrows Bridge eastbound to the Gowanus Expressway, to the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. Exit westbound to the West Side Highway/12th Avenue. At 34th Street, turn right. Go one block to 11th Avenue and take a left.

By Truck

Trucks higher than 12 ft. 6 in. will not clear tunnels. They must use a bridge.  Also remember that no trucks are allowed on parkways.

 

From North
95 South (via the Cross Bronx-Expressway): Exit at Amsterdam Avenue and cross the University Avenue Bridge to 181st Street. Turn left onto Broadway. (see Street Directions below)

87 South (via the Major Deegan Expressway): Exit at 155th Street/Macombs Dam Bridge. Continue west on 155th Street to Broadway where you turn left. (see Street Directions below)

Triborough Bridge: To Manhattan. Exit at 125th Street. Go west to Broadway and turn left. (see Street Directions below)

Street Directions: Continue on Broadway to the intersection of Broadway, West 65th Street and Columbus Avenue. Bear right onto Columbus. This becomes 9th Avenue at 59th Street. Stay on 9th Avenue to 34th Street. Follow westbound signs to 11th Avenue.

12’ 6” and under:
From Long Island–Route 495 (Long Island Expressway): To Queens Midtown Tunnel. Take southbound or downtown exit to 34th Street and turn right. Follow westbound signs to 11th Avenue.

From Staten Island and Brooklyn:
From the Verrazanno Narrows Bridge, take the Gowanus Expressway to the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. Follow westbound signs to 11th Avenue.

Over 12’ 6”:
Manhattan Bridge: Follow westbound signs to 11th Avenue.

New Jersey Approach:
See directions from George Washington Bridge.

Public Transportation

Please keep in mind that the public transportation fare is $2.25. The subways accept MetroCards. Buses accept MetroCards and exact change fares. With MetroCards you can transfer from subway to bus and bus to subway for one fare. MetroCards are available at local stores.

Buses

M34:
Runs east/west on 34th Street. Stops on 11th Avenue outside the Javits Center and at Penn Station.
M42:
Runs east/west on 42nd street. The closest stop to the Javits Center is 42nd Street and 11th Avenue.

Port Authority
New Jersey Transit and other buses arrive at the Port Authority terminal at 42nd Street between 8th and 9th Avenues. The M42 bus will bring you from there to the Javits Center.

Trains/Subway
The following trains stop at 34th Street/Penn Station:

  • Amtrak
  • New Jersey Transit
  • The Long Island Rail Road
  • 8th Avenue Subway:
  • 7th Avenue Subway:
  • 6th Avenue Subway:

The following trains stop at 42nd Street/Times Square (Broadway):

  • 8th Avenue:
  • 7th Avenue:
  • 6th Avenue:

The following trains stop at Grand Central Station at 42nd Street at Lexington

  • Lexington Avenue Subway:
  • Metro North Railroad

For further information, call MTA Travel info: 718.330.1234

Ferry Service

The NY Waterway operates a ferry from Weehawken, NJ. In just 8 minutes the ferry takes you across the Hudson River to 39th Street and 12th Avenue, just one block from the Javits Center. Just park at the convenient lot adjacent to the ferry terminal in Weehawken and take a ferry which leaves every 10 – 15 minutes during peak hours.

Call 1-800-53-FERRY for schedule and information

___________________________________________________________________

2013 Calendar

American International Toy Fair ▪ February 10, 2013 – February 13, 2013 – www2.toyassociation.org

THE VOICE Casting ▪ February 16, 2013 – February 17, 2013 – http://www.nbcthevoice.com/

MMA World Expo ▪ February 16, 2013 – February 17, 2013 – http://www.mmaworldexpo.com/

CURVENY ▪ February 24, 2013 – February 26, 2013 – http://www.curvexpo.com

JA New York Winter Show ▪ February 24, 2013 – February 26, 2013 – http://www.nationaljeweler.com

Fashion Coterie ▪ February 24, 2013 – February 26, 2013 – http://www.enkshows.com/coterie/

Sole Commerce ▪ February 24, 2013 – February 26, 2013 – http://www.enkshows.com/coterie/

MODA Manhattan ▪ February 24, 2013 – February 26, 2013 – http://www.modamanhattan.com

The Accessories Show  ▪ February 24, 2013 – February 26, 2013 – http://www.accessoriestheshow.com

FAME ▪ February 24, 2013 – February 26, 2013 – http://www.fameshows.com

New York Wine Show ▪ March 1, 2013 – March 3, 2013 – http://www.wine-expos.com

International Restaurant & Food Service Show of New York ▪ March 3, 2013 – March 5, 2013 – http://www.internationalrestaurantny.com/

American Diabetes Association Diabetes Expo ▪ March 8, 2013 – March 9, 2013 – http://www.diabetes.org/in-my-community/expo/2013/new-york-expo-2013

Coffee Fest New York ▪ March 8, 2013 – March 11, 2013  http://www.coffeefest.com/

New York City First Robotics Competition ▪ March 8, 2013 – March 10, 2013 – http://www.nycfirst.org

20th Original GLBT Expo ▪ March 9, 2013 – March 10, 2013 – http://www.originalglbtexpo.com/

Children’s Club ▪ March 10, 2013 – March 12, 2013 – http://www.enkshows.com/

World Floral Exposition Expo ▪ March 13, 2013 – March 15, 2013 – http://www.hppexhibitions.com/floriculture/2013/nyc/

20th Original GLBT Expo ▪ March 9, 2013 – March 10, 2013

Children’s Club ▪ March 10, 2013 – March 12, 2013

World Floral Exposition Expo ▪ March 13, 2013 – March 15, 2013

ADVANCE Job Fair for Healthcare Professionals ▪ March 14, 2013 – March 14, 2013

International Vision Expo ▪ March 15, 2013 – March 17, 2013

New York International Automobile Show ▪ March 29, 2013 – April 7, 2013

American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery Annual Meeting ▪ April 13, 2013 – April 15,

Amazon Web Services User Summit ▪ April 18, 2013 – April 18

Interphex ▪ April 23, 2013 – April 25, 2013

Buildings New York ▪ April 24, 2013 – April 25, 2013

College Fair (NACAC) ▪ April 28, 2013 – April 28

Advanced Energy ▪ April 30, 2013 – May 1

SUPPLYSIDE MARKETPLACE 2013 ▪ April 30, 2013 – May 2, 2013

Moda Manhattan ▪ May 5, 2013 – May 7

Accessories The Show ▪ May 5, 2013 – May 7

FAME ▪ May 5, 2013 – May 7

ASIS New York City Chapter Trade Show ▪ May 8, 2013 – May 9

Robin Hood Dinner Dance ▪ May 13, 2013 – May 13, 2013

International Contemporary Furniture Fair ▪ May 18, 2013 – May 21

Love Fellowship Tabernacle Services ▪ May 18, 2013 – May 19

National Stationery Show ▪ May 19, 2013 – May 22

Supply Side ▪ May 19, 2013 – May 22

Surtex ▪ May 19, 2013 – May 22

BookExpo America ▪ May 30, 2013 – June 1

Cloud Computing Expo ▪ June 10, 2013 – June 13,

International Franchise Expo ▪ June 20, 2013 – June 22

International Fancy Food Confection Show ▪ June 30, 2013 – July 2

Texworld USA ▪ July 16, 2013 – July 18

Home Textiles Sourcing Expo ▪ July 16, 2013 – July 18

International Apparel Sourcing Show ▪ July 16, 2013 – July 18

MRKET ▪ July 21, 2013 – July 23

Vanguard ▪ July 21, 2013 – July 23

JA Summer Show ▪ July 28, 2013 – July 30

Fashion 2 Go ▪ August 4, 2013 – August 6

Accessorie Circuit Intermezzo Collections ▪ August 4, 2013 – August 6

CURVENY ▪ August 4, 2013 – August 6

Accessories The Show ▪ August 4, 2013 – August 6

Moda Manhattan ▪ August 4, 2013 – August 6

FAME ▪ August 4, 2013 – August 6

IT Roadmap Conference and Expo ▪ August 7, 2013 – August 7

NY International Gift Fair ▪ August 17, 2013 – August 21

Value + Variety Expo ▪ September 8, 2013 – September 10

2013 Holiday Buying Show for Bars Restaurants and Retail ▪ September 9, 2013 – September 10

MODA Manhattan ▪ September 22, 2013 – September 24

AccessoriesTheShow ▪ September 22, 2013 – September 24

FAME ▪ September 22, 2013 – September 24

Meet the Breeds ▪ September 28, 2013 – September 29

Children’s Club ▪ October 6, 2013 – October 8

Audio Engineering Society ▪ October 18, 2013 – October 20

New York Business Expo and Conference ▪ October 25, 2013 – October 25

I Can Do It! ▪ October 26, 2013 – October 27

JA Special Delivery ▪ October 27, 2013 – October 29

ADVANCE Job Fair for Health Professionals ▪ October 30,

Chartered Financial Analyst Exam ▪ December 7, 2013

The 2013 CHEM SHOW ▪ December 10, 2013 – December 12

How To Commandeer a Tradeshow

Don’t have $35,000 for trade-show real estate? No problem! These guerrilla marketing tips will get you noticed anyway.

Here’s a typical scenario faced by many young companies: You want to raise awareness of your company at an upcoming industry trade show, but you don’t have much money to spend. You know that participating in the tradeshow is the most effective option, but you can afford neither the high cost of booth space nor the booth needed to fill it.  Nonetheless, it is critical for your young company to join the fray and get in front of potential customers, partners and investors. So, what can be done?

In this situation, guerilla marketing can be a great strategy. All it takes is creativity and the ability to pull a stunt or two. No problem, right? Let’s get going.

1.    Understand the geography

Before the show, visit the main venues and surrounding hotels.  Figure out where people will walk, pick up buses, catch cabs, have lunch and meet for drinks. You’re trying to find the best locations for maximum visibility.

During this initial reconnaissance, make friends.  Meet the bell captain in the hotels that are nearby but aren’t part of the official show, say hello to the head of housekeeping and talk with the bar staff at local watering holes.  These folks are integral players in the guerilla marketing game and can often make or break your campaign.

2.    Know which assets the show controls and which it doesn’t

Think about all potential “logo real estate” around the show and find out what real estate you can take over that the show is not already using. Look at hotel key cards for non-show hotels ($250 plus the cards). Ask your new friends crucial questions: would the housekeeping, bar or bell staff don a free t-shirt, hat or button with your logo?  Do any of the hotels have in-room programming and can you be included?  A fundraising mantra comes into play here: If you don’t ask, the answer is always no.

Important note: stay clear of the things that are the purview of the trade show itself. You don’t want to get yourself blacklisted from future shows. You just want to take advantage of the larger ecosystem around a show to get some visibility for your company. There is a lot of room for everyone around a big event.

3.     Play the numbers game, to increase your chances of success

Sadly, despite your research, some of the gambits you use to sneak your way into the minds of potential customers will be spotted and removed immediately.  But others will succeed, as the hotel staff will naturally assume someone else authorized you to replace the hotel’s normal coasters in the bar with your logoed ones.  All it really took was a tip to the bartender ($50) and customized coasters ($125).  Try putting large buttons on the hotel maids ($100 tip/$100 buttons) and t-shirts on the bell staff ($200 tips/$150 t-shirts). Find the popular bars and tape posters in the bathroom stalls ($150) or put logoed toiletry baskets in the bathrooms ($250) that will draw attention to your company.

Timing is everything. You want to execute your ploys in close proximity to one another and throughout the run of the show.  As part of the action phase, expect some backlash.  If someone gets mad, apologize and move on. Expect some losses.

4.    Hijack the spotlight

Most tradeshows host large evening events. Think about how you can maximize this off-site exposure opportunity. Give out hats to the local taxi cab drivers who will be transporting party goers and offer a $100 prize to any driver seen wearing one.

Another idea is to hire a college drama group to stage a mock protest or a Flash Mob near the taxi and bus lines to highlight your product (as little as $300). Avoid impeding traffic flow and stick to public streets and you likely won’t run into any problems.

Celebrity impersonators wearing your logoed item and a photographer can attract a lot of attention. Be sure to capture the contact information from those who pose with your stars, so you can send the picture to them and begin building a more meaningful relationship. This is a perfect thing in Vegas.

While your company is starting off, these tips and tricks can make the difference between being remembered and being just another face in the start-up crowd.  Later, when you’re successful and the company has progressed, you’ll have the option of spending $30,000 – $75,000 to do the trade show “properly.” You’ll likely look back on these shenanigans with a private smile.  I still do.

Inc. Magazine – December 12, 2012

NOT THE CORNER OFFICE | Don Rainey

Exec hopes math museum adds up – Math Museum – New York

Source Lunch: Exec hopes math museum adds up

Glen Whitney, a 43-year-old math professor turned hedge funder, will soon realize a dream. In December, he will open the Museum of Mathematics, or MoMath, a state-of-the-art interactive museum at 11 E. 26th St. The executive director created the museum in an effort to excite American youth about the sometimes inscrutable field. He left his lucrative job as an algorithms manager at quantitative hedge fund Renaissance Technologies four years ago and set out to build the cultural institution, raising nearly $24 million.

What do you want MoMath to achieve?

The mission is to change perceptions about mathematics. One of our trustees put it very simply: If we can show people just three things—that math is fun, that it’s beautiful and that with it you can get a really good job—then we’ll be a complete success.

Is the United States in trouble because our kids are not up to par in the subject?

Yeah, it’s clear, and you don’t have to take it from us. I was sitting down with someone from Microsoft Corp. just a couple of weeks ago, and they said last year they had 2,500 positions they couldn’t fill because they can’t find people with sufficient math and computer science skills. Raytheon Corp. told us they have 4,500 open positions because of the same thing.

What is the coolest thing at the museum?

That’s a tough question. My favorite is called Feedback Fractals, probably because of how simple it is. There are four video cameras that are all focused on this screen with which you can create an incredible array of striking images that seem to well up out of nowhere.

Is this actually math?

People ask us that a lot about our exhibits because we’re bringing out these aspects of math that people, unfortunately and sadly, don’t get to see in their whole 2,000 hours of forced math exposure over the course of kindergarten to 12th grade. This is math in a whole number of ways. The simplest way is just the understanding that there is a repeating pattern, and that is the root of mathematics.

How did you raise all the money for the museum? Did you hit up your hedge fund friends?

There were a number of things we had to do: Build a board of trustees, raise money, find advisers, find volunteers. Like anything, it’s like ripples in a pond. You start with the people you know. The first rule was go to every [relevant event] and tell everyone you see and meet about this idea.

Did you meet your fundraising goal?

We have one area of critical need: exhibit sponsorship. Our exhibits are very innovative, so we got estimates of how much they would cost. But the fabricators said they’ve never built anything like this before. As a result, the quotes came out much higher than the estimates had been. We will open with about 35 of the planned exhibits. But we still need to raise another $1.5 million to $2 million to complete the vision and get to 45 exhibits eventually.

What is the target age for the museum?

The people we try to keep in mind as we’re creating things is fourth through eighth grade. Kids in elementary school are often excited by math and science, and the kids who are good at it are heroes. Then something happens in middle school, where suddenly it’s not cool to be good at math and science. We want to target that age and have a place that’s really cool, a place where it’s safe to express your love for mathematics.

Were you stigmatized for loving math as a kid?

There were other folks in my high school that got, shall we say, ribbed for being the brainiac, and I was very conscious that I didn’t want that to happen to me. So I tried to lie low a little bit.

 

Crains New York Article – Jul 15, 2012 5:59 am

6 Tips to Managing Client Expectations

6 Tips to Managing Client Expectations
Inc. Magazine
Michael A. Olguin
May 7, 2012

These tips will help you build longstanding relationships that can withstand the good times as well as the bad.

So much work goes into winning new business, regardless of the vertical space in which you work; there is the initial prospecting, early conversations, strategic program development, budget consideration, and creation of a deliverables timeline. Unfortunately, all of that work can come to a screeching halt before the ink is dry on the contract when the same amount of time, energy and commitment isn’t placed on managing the client’s expectations after the business is won.

To ensure this is never overlooked, we developed the Super Six: keys to developing excellent client expectations and building longstanding relationships that can withstand good times as well as bumps in the road. After all, it’s easy to keep a client when things are going well; maintaining a client when times are tough is the true test of a relationship. We believe the Super Six will aid in this process:

1. Build a relationship that goes beyond client/vendor I have long maintained that business people like working with people they not only respect, but also personally like. Therefore, we believe that developing a personal relationship goes a long way in building a stronger business relationship. Get to know the client’s family situation, how they spend their free time, where their interests lie and, most importantly, what motivates them on a daily basis. When you understand what makes them tick as a person, you can translate that into your business relationship.

2. Regularly communicate and address problems directly A lack of communication is usually at the root of most problems associated with clients. Any good client relationship will be able to weather setbacks if you are proactive in communicating both good and bad news. When communication is direct and transparent, trust forms and helps to create a foundation for long-lasting relationships.

3. Agree on strategy, goals and timelines Until you and your client agree on strategy, goals and timelines, you are always at risk of them not understanding what success is and how it should be measured. We always suggest creating a scope-of-work document that outlines the program details, budgets and metrics. This will alleviate any confusion over expectations and hopefully eliminate a difficult conversation.

4. Be a  Agree on strategy, goals and timelines When you offer your client advice, direction, input and business counsel, you become a truly valuable partner. This style of open dialogue helps to establish the respect necessary to ensure better project management. Clients hire outsourced marketing services because they want an objective opinion. If you fail at giving that POV, you subject yourself to being a “yes man or woman,” which will ultimately be your undoing.

5. Be a good listener Listening is one of the most misunderstood and least used tools in managing client expectations. Many clients are unsure of what they are trying to accomplish or not very good at articulating it. As such, you must have excellent intuition and listening skills in order to identify key messages being communicated. One of the best ways to compensate for a client who communicates poorly is to repeat what you have heard and ask them to confirm the accuracy of key takeaways, which will ultimately impact expectations.

6. Budget is not a bad word Most relationships will go south very quickly if you are not open and honest about budgets. To start, you must be realistic about setting a clear understanding of the budget required to execute the desired program. Throughout the course of the program, you must have regular dialogue about budgets. If you don’t address the client until you have an issue (i.e., operating over budget), you will not only have an unhappy client, you may also find yourself eating the overages.

At the end of the day, your ability to manage client expectations is going to hinge on how well you choose to communicate. If you leave things up to chance, chances are you and your client will both be disappointed. However, if you take the time to listen, be proactive about communicating openly and address any issues head-on, you will keep client expectations in check and be in a good position to grow your relationship over time.

http://www.inc.com/michael-olguin/6-tips-to-managing-client-expectations.html

Obesity and Other Targets of Children’s Museums

PLAY WITH A PURPOSE   EatSleepPlay at the Children’s Museum of Manhattan is intended to promote children’s health.

CHILDREN’S museums do not usually have exhibitions that involve crawling through a giant digestive system.

A child exits a maze designed to explain the function of the intestines in the digestive process.

But such an installation — along with a play center where visitors learn the power of pedaling, bouncing and jumping and a place to meet superpowered vegetable heroes — is part of a larger effort by the Children’s Museum of Manhattan to help prevent childhood obesity.

While children’s museums are primarily known as activity centers to divert the younger set and to help form future museumgoers, they are increasingly focused on social outreach. “Part of our mission is to provide access,” said Andy Ackerman, executive director of the Children’s Museum of Manhattan. “Social issues, education, health and creativity — it’s all a continuum, and we can connect those domains and reinforce each of them.”

The Port Discovery Children’s Museum in Baltimore has adapted museum exhibits and programming for children with special needs. The Young at Art Museum in Davie, Fla., has an afterschool arts program for homeless students. The Providence Children’s Museum in Rhode Island helps children in foster care find permanent families. And the Children’s Museum of the Arts in Manhattan provides a place for foster-care children to reunite with their birth parents by making art together.

“As resources become more and more scarce, everybody’s looking to children’s museums to fill varying kinds of needs for children and families,” said Janet Rice Elman, executive director of the Association of Children’s Museums in Arlington, Va. “These are places where families can learn through play — from science to early literacy skills to parenting — in settings that are joyful.”

Many of these programs involve collaborations with other organizations that have specific expertise. The Children’s Museum of Manhattan on the Upper West Side, for example, developed its so-called EatSleepPlay effort with the National Institutes of Health and collaborates with the City University of New York on training at-home child-care providers in teaching literacy, math and science.

The Children’s Museum of the Arts in SoHo has joined with Henry Street Settlement’s Urban Family Center to bring free weaving, printmaking and sculpture to children living in transitional housing, culminating with a children’s art exhibition and a reception for families and friends. And the Boston Children’s Museum is joining with Head Start, Boston Public Schools and the City of Boston to prepare students for kindergarten.

“We want to be relevant to our communities,” said Jeri Robinson, the vice president for early childhood and family learning at the Boston museum.

Museums are also developing continuing relationships with outside experts. The Children’s Museum of Manhattan, for example, has worked closely with health advisers like Dr. Judith Owens, director of sleep medicine at the Children’s National Medical Center in Washington. Her research helped the museum develop the sleep section of the EatSleepPlay exhibition,  covering topics like preparing for sleep, what happens during sleep and how much sleep children need.

Rather than serving as just one more recreational option, children’s museums are recasting themselves as essential anchors in their communities — “the hub or the center,” Mr. Ackerman said.

“Educating through the arts,” he added. “That’s how you change behavior.”

The New-York Historical Society is seeking to educate with its new DiMenna Children’s History Museum, which opened last fall. Young visitors learn about prejudice by studying the life story of James McCune Smith, the first African-American to earn a medical degree. They learn about money and credit by visiting the Alexander Hamilton pavilion. “All of the exhibits we’ve developed are focused on teaching a skill or a behavior,” said Louise Mirrer, the president and chief executive.

The museums are also reaching beyond their walls to take their programming more aggressively into underprivileged neighborhoods. The Children’s Museum of Manhattan is replicating its exhibitions in East Harlem’s public housing. It sends two artists to Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center every week to work with children. And it is running health and literacy programs in the Bronx and New Orleans.

And children’s museums are making a concerted effort to draw specific groups of people who might otherwise not come through their doors. On Mondays, the Children’s Museum of Manhattan is open to children with autism and their families, as well as to school groups. “They need a quiet venue,” Mr. Ackerman said.

The ARTogether program at the Children’s Museum of the Arts brings foster children together with their biological parents to create art, led by a clinically trained, licensed art therapist. The museum recently expanded the effort to include families with children at risk of being placed in foster care. It has hired staff members who speak Mandarin and Cantonese.

“You can come to our space and participate alongside other folks who maybe aren’t having the same challenges,” said David Kaplan, the museum’s executive director. “You want to be supportive of families in the program but you want to be empowering them — you don’t want them to rely on you forever. Eventually you want them coming to the museum on their own terms and on their own time.”

In opening a larger space last fall, the Children’s Museum of the Arts hopes to generate more revenue to benefit children at risk, to provide a “nice, safe environment for people to come to,” Mr. Kaplan said.

Not only are children’s museums seeking to educate, they want their visitors to feel comfortable entering cultural institutions for many years to come and to see exhibitions that affirm their own experience. “The audiences who are living here want to be able to come here and see their lives reflected,” said Ms. Robinson of the Boston museum.

In some cases, the exhibits also take the visitors to places they have never been. The museum now features a Japanese silk weaver’s house that was a gift from Kyoto. “Many of our kids will never go to Japan,” Ms. Robinson said. “But they can have an authentic Japanese experience by coming to our house.”

By Robin Pogrebin / Published: March 14, 2012 / on page F2 of the New York Times

MOMA – Pipilotti Rist

The Displayers are very proud to have taken part in this project and grateful to Pipilotti Rist and The Museum of Moderm Art (MOMA) for publicly thanking The Displayers upon the exhibitions plaque.  Pipilotti Rist’s video installation projected upon all walls of the MOMA’s second floor large gallery. Conceived for the public to view the installation from the prospective of artist, the floor was covered with carpeting and a 40′ diameter round couch that from above (and the third floor) looked like the iris of an eye. Upon the walls were (3) organic shaped round enclosures 15′ round designed to house and conceal theater scaled projectors and blend into the video. These enclosures were created from foam, custom carved and engineered to address ventilation, access and mounting of the projectors. The Displayers created these enclosures and couch for this exhibition.
rist_mp.ai rist_mp.ai IMG_1501 a 960

 

Grand Central Holiday Fair – Design Concept Flythrough

The Displayers managed the installation and dismantle of Grand Central Terminals Holiday Fair for (6) years.  Installation of the Holiday Fair required the handling and installation of (43) crates to assemble and fill the 12,000 square foot Vanderbilt Hall over a (20) men to assemble over (5) days.

Jones Lang LaSalle and The MTA asked that conceptual designs be proposed to replace existing system.  The renderings and fly – through was The Displayers proposal.

 

Design 960 des GCT Holiday Fair concepts pg4-9 12-19-08-1 540x960

design 400 90 des GCT Holiday Fair concepts pg1-3 12-19-08-2

How to Train Your Exhibit Staff

EXHIBITING 101 – How to Train Your Exhibit Staff

Ten topics to cover in your pre-show meeting.

 

When exhibit managers ask me, “What’s your best secret weapon at a trade show?” my answer is always the same: “A well-trained exhibit staff.”

As exhibit managers, we are consumed by the broad scope of the exhibiting experience, and we often forget that our staff doesn’t have the same level of involvement and knowledge. However, if we effectively communicate with our exhibit staff, their comfort level will be high and they’ll help us achieve our objectives. Excluding very large companies with deep pockets, less than 5 percent of exhibitors have formal staff-training meetings. If your staff is well trained you will have a competitive advantage and you will create a better experience for your attendees.

In a perfect world, exhibit training begins with a pre-show meeting held up to a month before the show at the corporate office. But a pre-show meeting can also be held the day before the show, or even at breakfast the first day of the show.

If you hold the pre-show meeting in your exhibit, remember that walls have ears. I’ve learned some of my best competitive intelligence from my competition’s pre-show product-training meeting held in the neighboring exhibit. Hold your product training in a meeting room in the convention center, a local restaurant with private meeting rooms, or at your hotel.

The elements you include and the extent to which you cover them in your pre-show meeting depends on a number of criteria. Consider the amount of time available for training, the experience level of the team, the size of the staff and their familiarity with one another and the company’s products, the number and intricacy of products on display, the size and complexity of your exhibit, and your promotional program.

Keep the pre-show meeting short — no more than to two hours. Think of your meeting as the “Reader’s Digest” version of what you’d really like to do if you had unlimited time.

Promote it as a show preview rather training, so veteran staffers who think they know it all will be encouraged to attend. Here are 10 topics to cover in your pre-show meeting to prepare your staff for the show.

1. The Show’s Value and Corporate Investment
Ideally, your company’s management team should open the meeting, emphasize its support of the exhibit program as part of the overall marketing mix, and relay the corporate commitment to the show and its importance to the company’s success.

Share any results from last year’s show with your staff and use it to challenge improvement. Share data on the cost to exhibit — average cost per employee, cost per lead, cost per qualified lead, or cost per sale. Letting staff know the costs associated with exhibiting at the show can open their eyes to the value of the show to the company and the importance of their job at the show.

2. Target Audience
Review the profile of your target audience, including job title(s), type and size of company, budget size, and the problems your “perfect prospect” typically encounters. Remind staff that not all targeted contacts are prospects. Let them know what customers, VIPs, press, and analysts may be stopping by, as well as the badge color your target audience will be wearing.

3. Goals and Objectives
Review the company’s show strategy and key messages. Personalize the goals for individual staff members and get their commitment to achieve them. For example, if you have 10 exhibit staffers and your goal is to obtain 300 qualified leads during a 15-hour show, each staffer needs to get 30 qualified leads, or an average of two leads per hour.

4. The Power of Attitude
Explain to staff that their interaction with attendees will be the most memorable part of their visit to your exhibit. Stress the value of a positive first impression, good listening skills, confident body language, and the use of phrases like “Tell me about…” to draw information from attendees. Remind staff that unless they’re behind the closed door of their hotel room, they’re “on stage” and they represent the company.

5. Sales Review
Talk about why selling from an exhibit is different than field sales — the compressed time frame for interaction, the sensory overload, the instant comparison to your competition. Give staffers the specific structured components of interaction with attendees: a greeting to engage attendees; a brief elevator speech; three to five open-ended, qualifying questions; consensus on a future interaction; and a comfortable dismissal. Specify how you’d like the staff to record the information taken during the conversation.

6. Boothmanship Rules
Tell your staff that every booth visitor is a VIP guest and should be treated as such. Ask staff to help you compile a list of the dozen worst exhibit faux pas — such as talking on their cell phones, eating in the booth, chewing gum, ignoring attendees, and talking in closed groups. Then deputize them to help you police offenders.

7. Exhibit Tour
You know your exhibit inside out, but your staff doesn’t know the storage closet from the meeting room. Review your booth layout, including all demo stations, information counters, and lead-gathering systems. Point out the locations of the nearest entrance and exit, restroom, concession stand, luggage and coat-check area, cyber café, and fire apparatus. If time allows, run through the demos and presentations.

8. Tool Kit
The pre-show meeting is also a good time to provide staff with tools to help them be star performers. Do they know what products you have in the booth and how to demonstrate them? Do they need to familiarize themselves with pocket-sized product “cheat sheets” and show-special pricing? Are there any issues, such as product-delivery delays or negative PR, for which they need to know the corporate party line?

To get the most complete and concise lead information, review your lead-gathering system, whether you’re using pre-printed, manual lead forms or an electronic lead system that reads attendee badges. Also, orient staffers to any promotions or giveaways you’re distributing and the qualification process involved.

9. Housekeeping Details
This part of the meeting can cover everything from the distribution of show shirts and badges to where you keep show reference material and press kits in the booth. Explain your expectations: to arrive at the show at least a half hour before their shift starts and to plan on transportation delays and lines to get through show security. Reiterate the dress code (including ironed shirts) and what personal items can be stored in the booth.

10. Fun and Games
Add some spice to your pre-show meeting by giving out trade show survival kits. These can include items such as foam insoles, Altoids, and T-shirts imprinted with “Trade Show Warrior.” You can also give crisp $2 or $5 bills or small-denomination gift cards as prizes for participation in role plays, correct answers to “skill-test questions,” or the best qualifying question or 30-second elevator speech.

Professional athletes don’t play the big game without a warm-up. And actors don’t skip their dress rehearsal. So don’t mess with your show’s success — prepare your staff to be your secret weapon.

By Candy Adams
Exhibitoronline.com – March 2005

Five Ways to Make Your Small Exhibit More Effective

Five Ways to Make Your Small Exhibit More Effective
_______________________________________________________

You’ve got a small booth — 10-by-20 feet — and a budget to match. You’re getting ready to exhibit at one of your biggest shows of the year, an exhibition that’s jam-packed with big booths and big money. How do you get attendees to notice you?

“Visibility, interactivity, and involvement are different in a smaller exhibit, so you need to put more thought into how you focus your event,” says Marc Goldberg, CME, partner and founder of Marketech, an exhibit-staff training and measurement firm based in Westboro, MA, and a veteran small exhibitor. “You can’t outspend other exhibitors, so you have to outsmart them.”

Here’s what Goldberg and other industry experts had to say about making an exhibit larger than life.

1. Promote ‘Til You Drop
A targeted pre-show promotion is key to combating the disadvantage of size.

“Before visitors arrive at a show — unless they already know you — they have no idea whether you are a 10-by-10 or the largest exhibitor on the floor,” Goldberg says. “A two- or three-part promotion program gives the illusion that you are a player that must be seen. That is the objective: Get on your attendee’s ‘must see’ list.”

Does that mean you should send a flyer to every attendee? In most cases, no. Bob Burk, CTSM, marketing-communications manager for Norwalk, CT,-based chemical manufacturer King Industries Inc., explains. “If you’re doing a show with 10,000 attendees, you can’t afford to do a direct mailing to all 10,000 if you’re a small guy, but you can handpick 150 to 200 and target your market with a pre-show mailing,” he says. “We’ve found that very effective.”

At the International Coatings Exposition in Chicago this October, Burk targeted roughly 350, or 10 percent, of the show’s 3,500 pre-registered attendees who fit King Industries’ target audience based on job function. He sent out a direct-mail piece two weeks prior to the show. One hundred twelve attendees brought the flyer to Burk’s booth — a 32-percent return.

To find out which attendees fit your target market, ask show management for its attendance profile. “Most shows do a pretty good job of providing a prospectus that profiles who the attendees are and what their product interests are,” Burk says. “That should give you some clues on where to focus your efforts.”

When it comes to the promotion itself, Goldberg says one plan that works well for small exhibitors is a three-phase promotion. Give attendees a preview of your booth experience with a pre-show promotion, continue that experience in the booth, and then reinforce the experience with a post-show promotion. “This achieves greater memorability,” he says.

Goldberg puts this plan into action in Marketech’s 10-by-10-foot exhibit. Before the show, he typically sends attendees a 3-by-5-inch, four-color postcard printed with the message “Experience the Results.” When attendees visit the booth, they see the same message. After the show, Goldberg sends a 4-by-6-inch, four-color postcard with a photo of the Marketech staff and the message “Experience the Results” repeated again. At EXHIBITOR Show 2004, Marketech landed 36 qualified leads with this promotion — 33-percent more than the 24 qualified leads gathered at the 2003 show.

Keeping costs down is always top of mind with small exhibitors, but when it comes to promotions, Goldberg recommends splurging a bit. “Most exhibitors commit about 6 percent of their trade show budget to promotion. A small exhibitor must commit more,” Goldberg says. “Why? To drive home why a visitor should invest time to visit the exhibit .”

2. Focus Your Graphics
Every exhibitor needs graphics, Goldberg says, but a small exhibitor’s graphics need to be more effective and more attractive than most. “Your message must be clear and memorable to overcome the issue of size,” he says.

Patti Burge, an event-marketing and management consultant, offers some guidelines for catching the attendee’s eye. “Keep booth graphics simple and succinct,” she says. “Text should be benefit-oriented, not feature-oriented. Determine the most succinct way to say what your company or service does. An attendee shouldn’t have to ask, ‘What does this company do?’ More often than not, attendees will just walk by a booth if they can’t tell what the company does.”

3. Do It Yourself — or Find a Way to Do It Cheaper
If you have the time and the know-how, Burk suggests creating your own graphics. “If you’re able to do some of your graphics yourself using the standard computer programs out there, you can save a great deal of money because you don’t have to pay a graphic designer and an advertising house to produce them,” he says.

Kris Thatcher finds innovative ways to produce high-impact exhibit components for less. When the president of trade show consulting and hardware provider Kass Marketing Group LLC, based in Carrollton, TX, needed to rent a round pedestal with a red top for a client’s display, she refused to pay the hefty price quoted by her exhibit house.

“The standard tops were black and ran about $250 to $275,” Thatcher says. “When I inquired about a red top the price nearly doubled. But a trip to my local Plexiglas supplier netted me four, 24-inch red circles for the price of one custom top. My client will lay the red Plexiglas on top of the standard black. With careful packing, we should get several shows out of them.”

Burk discovered he can save on booth carpet by using a non-standard supplier. “Our company’s facility has 12 buildings, and we’re constantly changing our carpet, so it was less expensive to buy from the company that produces our office-building carpet than to go through the exhibit house. We probably saved 50 percent of the cost of other options from exhibit houses — a savings that could be channeled into exhibit-program components with bigger impact.”

4. Design for Change
When Burk designs a booth, he tries to envision a variety of ways he can use it. This ensures that the final booth design will be configurable in a number of different ways, and it allows him to change the look of the booth from show to show and year to year —which makes the exhibit more competitive.

For example, Burk’s current two-story, custom booth was designed with the usual components — cabinets, wall sections, and display pieces — but they can be used in everything from a 10-by-10-foot to a 20-by-40-foot configuration.

“We’re going on eight years with the same booth,” Burk says, “and every year people think it’s a different booth. But it’s the same framework that can be configured in several different ways. Rather than make an investment every two to four years on a new build, we’ve been able to save time and money by planning components to give the old booth a new look each year.”

5. Think Outside the Booth
To stand out in a sea of exhibits, Burk recommends scenery and props. At one of King Industries’ major shows for its Lubricant Additive Division, Burk rented a 1932 Packard, which he parked in the center of his 20-by-20-footspace next to two lead counters and signs that proclaimed the company’s “long-standing affair with the automobile.” Burk’s Packard cost $2,300 less than the company’s regular booth rental, and increased the number of qualified leads by more than 35 percent over the previous year.

Burk recalls one exhibit manager from a seminar he taught at EXHIBITOR Show 2003 who employed this technique with success. She works for a company that manufactures latex gloves for the medical industry, and jazzed up a standard 10-by-10-foot with a huge latex glove. “Rather than throwing up a typical pop-up, she had a big hand made,” Burk says. “This 8-foot-tall hand with a latex glove on it became her entire booth.”

The crafty exhibit manager even went the extra mile and connected her booth structure with her pre-show promotion. “She did a pre-show mailing with five points about her product that corresponded to the five fingers on the glove in the booth,” Burk says.

Sandra Monroe, marketing-communications manager for outdoor power-systems retailer Argus Technologies Ltd. of Burnaby, BC, Canada, builds her booth with product. “For our 20-by-20-foot space, I’ve moved away from sending large booth pieces and I’m using our equipment to design the booth,” Monroe says. “When I started at this company, we shipped a heavy custom booth to our 400 shows. That makes sense if you have small products or services and need something to fill the space. But I realized the booth just took up too much room.”

Monroe’s solution? She tossed the booth and created a walk-through exhibit of the company’s products. “Even though the products are not attractive, they’re what the customers want to see,” she says. “And the money saved on shipping and drayage can be put toward new signage and better lighting.”

Monroe also made her products the foundation for her giveaway, which she combined with a product demo.” One of our products has an air conditioner in the bottom to keep batteries at a cool temperature,” she says. “I put bottled water in the bottom and turned up the air conditioner. This way, we were able to give customers cold water and demo our product at the same time.”

Whether you use one or all of these techniques in your next exhibit, with a little time, thought, and elbow grease, you’ll only be as small as your imagination.

 

By Nicole Brudos Ferrara
Exhibitoronline.com

Effective Tradeshow Planning

 

Exhibiting at trade shows, expos, conventions, fairs and other exhibitions gives you a unique sales opportunity that can also help you generate new leads, find suppliers, check out the competition, do some networking, and get publicity. In short, you can achieve at one trade show what it would take you weeks or months to do if you stayed home. And it may even save you money — according to the Center for Exhibit Industry Research, it costs 62% less to close a lead generated from a trade show than one originated in the field.

But to accomplish all of the above you must plan carefully. That means choosing the correct show, setting clear objectives, creating an effective exhibition, and promoting your presence. All this, before you even get to the show! Click on the subjects below to learn more about getting the most out of your trade show experience.

Choosing the Correct Show

With more than 10,000 trade shows held in the United States annually, picking the one that will net you the greatest benefit for your investment of time and money can be daunting.

Begin your search by looking for trade shows that fit your product or service. You can find these out by looking in directories such as “The Tradeshow & Convention Guide” (BPI Communications) and “The Tradeshow Week Data Book” (Reed Reference), both of which list trade shows across the U.S., as well as various show data. On the Web, you can try one of the trade show search sites, including

Another resource for finding out about shows is your industry’s trade association, since many shows and conventions are sponsored by industry groups. Your local Chamber of Commerce or Convention Bureau may also be able to help you find out about smaller local shows.

Here are some additional tips to help you make the right choice:

Don’t just choose by the numbers
Big trade show crowds can actually be a waste of time if they don’t include people who are buyers or prospective customers for your product or service. Look closely at statistics of past years’ shows to help you evaluate whether attendees fit your customer profile. The show manager should be able to provide you with this data.

Ask your customers for help
Talk to your customers to find out what trade shows they attend, since shows that meet their needs will likely be attended by other prospects. You can also speak with your competitors to find out what shows they’ve found most useful.

Check it out ahead of time
The best way to evaluate a show is to take a first-hand look. Before you sign up, go to the show as an attendee. Is the show active and exciting? Are the people walking the show floor potential customers? Who are the other exhibitors and where would your product/service fit in the mix? Talk to people and keep your eyes open.

Evaluate it carefully
Once you’ve got a list of show possibilities, ask these questions to determine if the show is the right one for your purposes:

  • Is it big enough to draw a cross-section of prospects and vendors — but not so large that you’ll be competing against the giants in your industry?
  • Is it in the right place, geographically, to attract your customers — whether they are local, regional, national, or global?
  • Is it scheduled at a time when you can service the new business you’ll attract and follow up on leads?
  • Are the show’s promoters reliable and does the management have a proven track record of success?
  •  
    Don’t wait until the last minute
    Some popular shows fill up fast. If you wait too long, you could find yourself on a waiting list. Plus, the earlier you sign up for a show, the more choices you’ll have regarding finding a good location for your booth.

     
    Setting Clear Objectives
    To get the most out of the time, money and energy you invest in exhibiting at a trade show, it’s vital that you decide what your purpose is for being there and set measurable goals. Everything you do before, during, and after the show should be evaluated in terms of whether it contributes toward reaching these goals.

    Possible goals for trade shows
    Here are some reasons businesses exhibit at trade shows. Your goals may include several of these, or others that are important to your small business:

    • write sales orders
    • research the competition
    • spot trends
    • generate leads for future sales
    • build your mailing list with quality names
    • find better or cheaper suppliers
    • build rapport with current customers
    • get press
    • generate excitement around a new product
    • increase company’s visibility within the industry
    •  
      Be sure to staff your booth adequately and smartly
      You can’t do it alone. No matter what your goal, you will need at least one person to “spot” you when you leave the booth to take a break or to check out the competition. A good rule of thumb is to have two staffers for every 100 square feet of exhibit space. Your staff should be well-groomed, well-trained, friendly and knowledgeable. They should understand your goals and know their role in reaching them. If you don’t have employees on the payroll, hire relatives, friends, or part-timers.

      Focus your message
      Pick just two or three key ideas that you want to get across at the show and train yourself and your staff to “stay on message”. Design your graphics, pre-show promotion, literature and show directory advertising around your message.

      Create a budget
      Once you know which show you’re going to and what your goals are, draw up a budget. Without a budget, costs can quickly spiral out of control (last minute impulse purchases to jazz up your booth, for example) and defeat your best laid plans. One rule of thumb is that your space costs should represent about a quarter of your total budget. So when you know what you’ll be paying for space rental, multiply by four for a rough idea of your expenses, excluding personnel costs.

       
      Creating an Effective Exhibit
      Where your booth is located and how your booth looks will have an impact on your trade show success. Use these tips to help you along.

      Shoot for a high-traffic location
      Be sure to look at a floor plan before you choose your site. Foot traffic is heaviest in certain areas of a typical trade show floor. Look for locations near entrances, food concessions, rest rooms, seminar rooms, or close to major exhibitors. Try to avoid dead-end aisles, loading docks, obstructing columns, or other low-traffic regions.

      Consider sharing a booth
      New exhibitors often get the least desirable locations. One way around that is to share a well-located booth with a colleague in a related business. Talk to your sales rep, or try to hook up with an established exhibitor whose products or services complement yours.

      Elate the senses
      Make sure people coming to your booth can experience your product or service. Let them touch, see, feel, hear or taste it. Are you selling decorative pillows? Display them in an appropriate setting and have samples that buyers can touch. Have you developed a new software package? Be sure to have multiple computer terminals available for attendees to try the package.

      Keep it simple
      Don’t go overboard with booth graphics. One large picture that can be seen from afar may have a greater impact than many small ones. A single catchy slogan that describes your business may say more than long blocks of text.

      Gimmicks work
      Gimmicks and give-aways can also drive traffic to your booth. Hold a contest; have a loud product demo; give away pieces of candy; hire a masseuse and offer free back rubs. Just make sure that the gimmick fits your company’s image and the sensibilities of your clients.

      Promoting Your Presence
      Remember that the best trade show planning will fail if nobody knows you’re there. The CEIR estimates that as many as three-quarters of show attendees know what exhibits they want to see before they get to the show. Strong pre-show promotion will let your customers and prospects know about your exhibit. These tips will help.

      Work the phones
      A month to 6 weeks before the show, start calling your top customers and prospects to set up meetings. Many people arrive at a show with a firm schedule and have little or no time for other booths, so it’s important to get on that schedule as early as you can. Be sure to confirm all phone meetings a week or so before the show.

      Send out mailings
      The show’s management will often let you purchase a mailing list of pre-registered attendees. Try a simple pre-show mailing focusing on one or two benefits of dropping by your booth. Be sure to it includes show contact information, including your booth number.

      Use the press
      Issue press releases to trade publications and local papers that will be covering the show. Your release should highlight something newsworthy about your exhibit — a new product introduction or a special demonstration, for example. You’ll also want to prepare plenty of press kits for the show, and be sure to drop it by the press room so reporters can find it.

      Look out for show publications
      Advertising in publications that are distributed only at the show can be expensive and ineffective. These publications often have a narrow focus, and they get lost in the blizzard of paper that rains upon trade show attendees.

      Planning Your Follow-up Strategy
      The time to plan your follow-up strategy is before the show begins. That way, you can reach prospects with your follow-up message while the show is still fresh in their minds. Here are some things you should know about follow-up.

      Make follow-up a priority
      According to the Center for Exhibition Industry Research, 80% of show leads aren’t followed up. Make lead follow-up your number one priority after a show, taking precedence over just about everything else — including catching up on what you missed while you were out of the office.

      Write your follow-up mailer before the show
      Your post-show mailing can be as simple as a thank-you note or a brochure with a cover note. Write it and have it printed out before you leave for the show, so you can send the mailing immediately upon your return.

      Qualify leads during the show
      Rank your leads by level of importance and interest, and base your post-show efforts on these priorities. Phone your hottest prospects within a week after the show ends — the longer you let them sit, the staler they’ll become. Send everyone else some kind of follow-up mailing.

      Keep your promises
      Be sure that you keep any promises you made at your booth. Have enough brochures and product sheets on hand before the show so you can send out requested information promptly.

      American Express Company. All Rights Reserved

Crain’s New York – The Displayers

An article about our beginning.

 

Display maker puts together a solo effort

THE FAMILY BUSINESS CAN BE a frustrating place for a budding entrepreneur. Eager to make his own way, Greg Rathe abdicated his position as third-generation heir apparent at Rathe Productions, a big designer of trade shows and museum exhibits. Instead, four years ago he founded his own outfit, The Displayers.

“Growing your own company is something you don’t get a chance to do in a 55-year old family business,” says Mr. Rathe. Naming his company after his grandfather’s biggest competitor in the 1950s.

Mr. Rathe targeted an eclectic array of businesses, designing and installing trade show booths, exhibitions and showrooms.  Mr. Rathe says he made a specialty of fast turnarounds, calling on relationships he’d built up with suppliers during his years at the family business and assembling a melting pot of specializations on his staff.

The company balances display design with corporate identity work. Projects include in-store marketing materials for Apple Computer stores and acrylic logos for DKNY stores in Europe.  Museums may offer the most fertile ground for growth, as the size of The Displayers’ projects for that segment is increasing. The Displayers served as construction manager for the renovation of the Jewish Museum’s permanent exhibition and recently won a commission to create a 3,000-square foot exhibit at the New York City Police Museum.

The Displayers has grown to 1.4 million in revenues and eight employees.  That’s a far cry from Rathe Productions’ army of almost 100 architects, graphic designers, carpenters, metalworkers, engineers, computer specialists and artists, but Mr. Rathe says he has no regrets. “It’s like a fishing village – the sons go off and get their own boats,” he says. “There’s plenty of fish for everybody.”