CAA book & trade fair: The costs of participation

For publishers and others who have never participated in a trade conference like CAA, or for those who have or are planning to but who aren't familiar with the nuts-and-bolts specifics of planning it, I wanted to share with you as detailed as possible a rundown of the costs.

For businesses participating in association conferences and meetings, it isn't cheap. Aside from what can of course be very significant travel and lodging costs, booth materials and all the necessary shipping can add up quickly as well.

First, in large conference hotels or convention centers, trade shows fall under the purview of a number of unions. While this eliminates the need for a lot of labor on the part of the exhibitor, it also obviously adds to the cost. At the larger scales of most major publishers, working with union labor to set up booths, move freight, and install electric service, etc. is an unavoidable, but also often beneficial part of the game. At smaller scales though (like for Hol) we don't need, nor can we afford a lot of union labor. While I've found that at our size we are mostly allowed to do as we can on our own, it still takes some care and some cleverness to follow the provided guidelines and not step over the line as far as what should really be handled by union labor.

Aside from this, the major costs of exhibiting are booth rental, furniture rental and site services, and shipping. Booth rental is money that goes directly to the association and presumably helps to cover their costs for the space, if not also adding to the bottom line as to the profitability of the conference. While being the most obvious cost, it's only really half or even less of what the final total will be. The other pieces are furniture rental, site services, and shipping, most of which is controlled (I would say monopolized) by the "official" conference vendor, in this case, Champion Exposition Services. Of course I'm sure there are all sorts of very valid reasons for an association to work with a single vendor like this for a trade show, but the bottom line for the the exhibitor is that you either have to rent booth furniture from Champion at exorbitant prices like $170 for a single table or $100 for an arm chair, or you have to bring in your own, which at $142/100lbs for freight handling (not shipping, just handling the freight at the show site) is anything but money saving.

So, at the CAA conference both this year and last, my strategy has been to rent as little as possible (if only on principle) and to focus on finding a balance of what I could ship in, and what I could carry. Last year, the conference being in Los Angeles and within driving distance of Tucson, I brought everything with me and only paid Champion for freight handling (getting the stuff I'd brought from my car to my booth) and to install an electric outlet in the booth to run my laptop and LCD monitor. This year, the conference being in Chicago, I rented a couple things from Champion, brought quite a bit with me on the plane (thanks to Southwest for not charging for baggage and to REI for selling amazing fold-up aluminum tables), and had a very small shipment of books sent from our warehouse.

Still though, even being extraordinarily careful and restrained, the costs of exhibiting add up. What follows is a breakdown of what we spent, as well as a list of the things we would have been happy to have given the chance.

What we spent:

$1250	Rental of standard 8' x 10' booth through College Art Association
$124	Rental of two standard grey side chairs through the conference vendor, Champion Exposition Services
$191	Rental of 4' x 8' tack board, also through Champion
$105	Purchase of two 30" x 30" aluminum roll-up tables from REI.
$164	Printing of 500 2" x 7" promotional bookmarks at greenpostcards.com
$81	Printing of 9' x 1' "What's your favorite art book?" sign at FedEx Office
$37	Printing of 150 business cards
$23	Cost to ship 50lbs of Hol books from our New Jersey warehouse
$75	Cost Champion Expo charges to receive those same boxes and bring them to our booth
$100	Purchase of markers, pushpins, tablecloths and other supplies
$2150	TOTAL

What we might have spent:

$208	Extra it would have cost in receiving charges from Champion Expo to ship all of our books, rather than carrying 1/3 of them on the plane
$174	To have an electric outlet in the booth to run the laptop and LCD monitor from last year
$170	Rental of an 8' skirted table in place of the two folding tables I brought in
$156	Rental of different drapery for the back of the book to get rid of the rather unfortunate purple/white/grey combination CAA had chosen as the default
$118	Rental of a 30" round skirted table to put the chairs around and hold meetings and eat lunch
$180	Printing of a 36" x 48" banner and stand from FedEx Office, with the Hol logo prominently displayed
$975	High-speed internet at the booth, for one computer, for three days (if you can believe it, there was no other source of connection in the book and trade fair at all)
$1981	ADDITIONAL

Update on Tuesday, February 16, 2010 at 10:08AM by Hol Art Books

And today in The New York Times, an article on convention crashers who set up shop in hotel rooms and other unauthorized venues to avoid the costs of exhibiting officially. Of course, their prime example was the enormous Consumer Electronics Show, which I have no doubt makes our couple thousand dollar cost seem piddling. Still, interesting that the issues resonate despite the scale of the show.