[Anonymous]

[Anonymous]

In which our correspondent goes into battle at a trade fair and just about comes out alive…

Business travel has its perks – and its downsides. For every cancelled meeting that frees up an afternoon to explore a city or grab a round of golf, there are Friday evening flights home delayed or cancelled thanks to industrial action. Some days you can stroll through the shopping district of Paris, Berlin, Madrid or Milan and be home a few hours later for supper, while on others it would have been easier to buy a second-hand car and drive across Europe than rely on scheduled airlines.

Yet for all the slings and arrows of business travel, it was only on a recent week-long trip that I realised just how lucky I am. What brought about the revelation? I had to man a booth at a trade fair.

I have attended them in the past, but only as a guest and never for longer than a day. The core idea behind them is a sensible one. A lot of suppliers are gathered together, the buyers attend, we all share knowledge, sell or resist being sold to, and go home with our pockets full of business cards. Yes, they can be expensive since the organisers charge a lot for stand space, but if you get enough sales out of it the investment is worthwhile. And you can also see what your competitors are doing.

Such had always been my understanding, until a colleague was ill, we had a new product to promote and I found myself in the frame to be part of the sales push.

Nothing could have prepared me for the particular mix of stress and existential ennui of being on that stand for a week. It is called a stand, and that’s what I did, stand, for hours. They say you “man” it but this doesn’t strike me as man’s work at all, nor woman’s. Really, who or what it would suit is one of those new-fangled holograms that simply repeats the same spiel endlessly, with an unerring level of enthusiasm.

My memories of childhood are of frequently being bored and, viewed from the present, when I am very busy, boredom acquires a nostalgic tinge. No more. Now I have been to a trade fair I’ve remembered what boredom is like, and it’s awful. It’s even worse than when you were a child, when time was something that could be wasted because you had decades of it ahead of you. Being bored in your forties and fifties is excruciating. You’d much rather be learning French, or spending time with your kids, or in bed.

Then there’s the food, which is invariably awful and so expensive they take credit cards to cover the bill. I had to queue for ten minutes to pick up a hot dog, a burger or an anaemic sandwich. This I augmented with the boiled sweets we were offering in a bowl by the front desk. I ate so many I had a mouth ulcer at the end of the first day.

Do you ever miss natural light? Of course not – if you did, you’d just stick your head out of a window. Not at a trade fair. There aren’t any windows – it’s like a Las Vegas casino, without the gambling. After the first few days my health started to fail. Germs thrive in this atmosphere, transmitted by the constant shaking of hands and, among some of my continental friends, air kissing.

At the exhibition hotel there was a turndown gift of some fizzy vitamin tablets on the first night. I thought it strange, but now I know they do it to lessen the number of ambulances they have to call for guests who have come down with some debilitating virus. One colleague had a tube of hand sanitiser in his pocket to keep bugs at bay. It’s a good tip – if we were meant to shake this many hands in a week we’d have been born with royal blood. It must be why the Queen wears gloves.

So was it all misery? Well, I’m ashamed to say that the hardest I laughed all week was when someone leaned against a neighbouring booth and the whole thing fell down. It wasn’t just watching it collapse in slow motion that was so amusing, nor was it the big sign that ended up resting on someone’s head, but more the astonishment of the person who’d been hiding in the little room at the back when they were suddenly exposed by the disappearing walls. Very Buster Keaton.

By the end of the week I’d like to say that some form of camaraderie had formed among my fellow “man standers”, but that would not be true. Despite the terrible conditions, this was not a situation for which war analogies would be appropriate, other than to say that after five days I could recognise those who had shared my experience. They had the 1,000-yard stare of the trade fair veteran – a distant look as they focused on somewhere else, a place without strip lights, tinned music and corporate videos on a permanent loop.

Not a bonding experience as such, but a good life lesson. No matter how bad things are, someone else has it worse. And the next time you go to a trade fair, be nice to the people on the stand. They may even give you a boiled sweet.

This Frequent Traveller post first appeared in the April 2012 print edition of Business Traveller. Print subscribers can access the latest May edition online by logging on and clicking on Archive on the navigation bar.

[LeTigre]

I love the disappearing walls bit, reminds me of the days and hours spent at exhibitions with almost nothing to do and little to laugh at.

You should introduce a “From Our Readers…” section for us to write our funny stories, I have more than a few!

[FormerlyDoS]

Man up and get on with it. Wimp.

[LuganoPirate]

I remember the stale air and garish lighting. That’s what got to me.

As for hand shaking, several of my friends now bow as is done in Asia. Of course the Germans do both!

I hate it when you’re sitting in a restaurant, hands clean, waiting for food, and someone you know comes out the bathroom and wants to shake your hand! Have they washed their hands? Is that slight dampness actually water?

[capetonianm]

The bane of my previous working life was attending trade fairs. The awful glare of the lighting, the endless music and announcements on loops, the blinking and winking of countless display screens, the stale fetid air, the bad manners of people who would push onto the stand and sweep piles of give-aways into capacious carrier bags or pockets, people who would breathe their bad breath over you or paw you while they’re talking.

Idiots who would ask ‘does this get the internet?’ or would want to engage you in a personal conversation which you knew was a waste of time and a ploy to try to negotiate a better deal. People who would ask you a question about your product and then tell you the answer – wrongly. Or they’d ask you where you were from and you’d say Cape Town and they’d say ‘my sister’s hairdresser’s boyfriend is from Argentina – maybe you know him.’ Er, no, wrong continent, and even if it was the right one ….

I hated trade shows with a passion that nothing else has ever invoked in me before or since, not even my ex!

The monotony was only relieved from time to time by going to the hospitality counter and asking them to make an announcement for Mike Hunt and Hugh G Rection, or Makollig Jezvahted and Levdaroum De Bahzted to come to the enquiries desk.

[LeTigre]

DoS, as many of the comments testify, the problem with trade fairs is monotony, rather than sadness!

I felt sorry for all the other salesmen just stood there so I went round asking them questions about their product and making encouraging noises so that they were more motivated later on. I know it was just stringing them along for disappointment after but I couldn’t help it…

[apmeredith]

Ah, the joy of trade shows! The enthusiasm of the first day; the struggle of getting through the last day. The fake smile required with the tyre kickers; the joy of actually meeting a good contact. Remember that you have to have the same enthusiasm with person that turns up 5 mins before closing on the last day as you did with the first visitor of the week. You never know which frog you’ve kissed will turn into the princess!

[Charles-P]

My sister in her younger student days would sometime work as a “booth babe” at Earls Court in London. She once claimed to have worked three days on a booth without the slightest idea of what the company did.

[judynagy]

Oh, what memories! I did my one and only trade show when I was about 26. Anonymous lays it out PERFECTLY. I’d rather have my toes amputated than ever “man” a booth for more than 4 hours. There are some of who understand exactly why a booth falling apart next door is hysterical … if you haven’t done booth duty, you can’t imagine how funny an incident like that is.

[Author]

Posts