THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, July 25, 1996 TAG: 9607250353
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVE MAYFIELD, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: 66 lines
In T-shirt and jean shorts, and with a crumpled baseball cap covering his sweaty head, Dave Powell wasn't exactly the image his employer, an international computer-networking company, likes to project.
But Powell's booth in the exhibit hall at the Omni International Hotel - that was another story.
Neatly erected with dramatic backlit photos on its cloth rear walls, the cubicle leapt out in the name of its sponsor, Skokie, Ill.-based Anixter Inc.
Powell, who spent more than six hours setting up the display Tuesday and Wednesday, had accomplished his mission: to stand out among 100 exhibitors at the third annual Technology 2000 showcase.
All across the country this week, at hundreds of trade shows and conventions, people like Powell have been unpacking crates and piecing together displays in the hope that their products catch the eyes of exhibit-hall browsers.
They pay hundreds, thousands, even tens of thousands of dollars - for booth rentals and shipping, utility and set-up charges - each time they mount such displays. They pray that their backdrops and gadgets arrive on time and intact. They fret over telephone and power connections.
Too often, they don't get their fancy electronics working until just before show time. So they swear that when they have to do it again next week or next month, they won't take anything for granted. Then another problem pops up.
Still, for the most part, exhibitors say it's worth the hassle. The leads picked up at exhibit-hall shindigs like the one at the Omni this week often turn into sales.
The trick is to get people to stop and look.
Powell, a systems engineer in Anixter's Richmond-area office, said his company has invested upward of $100,000 for its custom-made exhibits. So he doesn't take any chances making sure thingsare set up right.
With his two teenage sons contributing extra muscle, Powell went to work about 9:30 p.m. Tuesday setting up Anixter's booth at the Omni. They knocked off at about midnight, and then Powell arrived back in the hotel ballroom early Wednesday to finish up. At 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, after an hour of tedious wiring, Powell turned on three switches that would be used to demonstrate a desktop videoconferencing system.
``C'mon,'' he said, waiting for the switches to go through a diagnostics phase that set indicator lights flashing. ``C'mon . . . Oh. I'm a happy engineer now.'' All systems were go, and soon Powell would hustle to his room for a shower, shave and a change into a neatly pressed suit so he could be ready for the 3 p.m. exhibit-hall opening.
An aisle over, Pamela Arnold and her crew from the Columbia, Md.-based Outreach Technologies were having slightly less luck. Their elaborate display for data-conferencing systems was tripping circuit breakers. More power would be needed. So a hotel worker rigged a quick connection to another outlet halfway across the room.
Arnold was remarkably composed - considering that a day earlier Outreach's entire exhibit, including four personal computers and two big display screens, was sitting in Chicago by mistake. A shipping-company employee had jotted down the wrong city code, she explained. But the company managed to get Outreach's $150,000 worth of equipment to Norfolk first thing Wednesday morning.
She likes the behind-the-scenes bustle it takes to get ready for a show. Don't be fooled, Arnold said. The confident faces uniformly worn by exhibitors sometimes lie.
``It's usually a mad scramble at the last minute,'' she said. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by JIM WALKER, The Virginian-Pilot
Pamela Arnold... by CNB