Geneva Auto Show

[Rick Potter]

So, I opened the latest edition of Motor Trend mag today. Came to a spread on the Geneva (Switzerland) Auto show, which was cancelled because of the Covid problem just before it was to open.

This is a huge show where lots of super expensive cars debut for the year, and the article had a full page pic of one of the show halls where they apparently just stopped work on building displays for the various brands, and walked away.

The pic was a panoramic taken from the top of an escalator, showing the showroom floor in disarray, and right at the bottom of the escalator was a portable table saw. I don't know if it belonged to a contractor, or the hall itself, but it was identifiable as an Altendorf F45 slider.

I guess if you are a contractor making sets for mega money displays, an Altendorf would make a logical contractor saw. I suppose it might belong to the hall itself. The wooden box they store it in, along with another containing a DC were next to it.

I would not be surprised if there isn't a cottage industry near the Convention Center with several companies who make new sets every year for the many companies displaying cars. Kind of like the Rose Parade float industry around here.

[Jerome Stanek]

When I was doing trade shows we would ship our tools in large wooden crates that we could slide them back into and send them to the halls storage. We did have our own fleet of semis to transport the displays and tools. the last year I went to the housewares show in Chicago we sent 21 trailers.

[Jim Becker]

There are folks who make a good living making trade show displays...they have to be well designed and attractive/striking, easy to assemble/disassemble--since many venues require that assembly to be done by local labor forces by contract, ship efficiently have durable finishes and look like a single structure when installed.

[Peter Kelly]

In Europe and South America it's often times the exhibit company's shop guys putting the displays together so sliders on show floor aren't totally uncommon at the larger events. Also no drayage outside the US so displays are typically made out of melamine clad particleboard, modifications are a lot quicker if you've got a slider there. It's a funny antiquated industry there compared to the US.



There are folks who make a good living making trade show displays...they have to be well designed and attractive/striking, easy to assemble/disassemble--since many venues require that assembly to be done by local labor forces by contract, ship efficiently have durable finishes and look like a single structure when installed.Show site exhibit builds in the US are almost always done with local labor but there isn't any mandate by the shows or halls as to who builds your display other than following whatever union rules there may be. The rules also vary widely by show city and hall. Orlando FL and Houston TX are pretty lax, San Francisco, Chicago, New York and Las Vegas are all varying degrees of difficulty.

Going to be a difficult path forward for a lot of shops out there with all the shows being cancelled.

[Jim Becker]

All of the displays my former employer used at shows were pre-built and shipped from show to show. (Telecommunications industry) Nothing was ever built locally near a show venue. This applied regardless whether it was a large show with a massive booth or a small presence at regional or specialty shows. The booth design and construction was subcontracted out, however, and there was always an attempt to reuse some fixtures when that was possible, even if they were transformed visually due to changing marketing design. Actually installing them, however, was always local labor which was quite often union at the larger and mid-sized venues. That was why the designs and assemblies had to go together like clockwork because the folks putting them up and taking them down will not have seen them previously.