• Client comments and quotes
• Review of all text for ’services’ area
• Review of all images for ’services’ area
• All portfolio images are to be 600×400 with name, size and show name
• Need rental properties images
• Need portable images

Thank you! We are getting close and will soon have the site ready for public launch.

Please send all content or images to adellinger@adex-intl-west.com 

Las Vegas still is suffering losses in the number of attendees coming to town for conventions, as well as the number of conventions and meetings hosted there.

According to the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority Executive Summary for May, convention attendance slid to 341,846 from 509,482 in the same period last year, a 32.9-percent decrease.

The number of meetings and conventions held in Las Vegas in May also dipped to 1,643 from 2,208 in the same period last year, a 25.6-percent decrease.

Fortunately, tourists didn’t stay away in droves, with 3,199,719 flocking to the city in May, down just 5.8 percent, compared with the same time period last year. Once there, though, they held onto their money.

“While hosting upwards of 3.2 million visitors in the course of the month, broader economic challenges translated to lower visitor spending as reflected in declines in ADR (average daily rate, 28.3 percent) and countywide gaming revenue (7.7 percent),” according to LVCVA officials.

The only number in the May LVCVA report that reflected a positive increase was the number of hotel rooms available in Las Vegas, which grew to 140,623 this year, from 136,733 in the same time period last year, a 2.8-percent increase.

The 2010 Intl. CES, scheduled Jan. 7-10, will be centralized at the Las Vegas Convention Center and the Las Vegas Hilton, with the Sands MegaCenter no longer part of the show. Consumer Electronics Assn. officials said that, since the expansion and renovation of the LVCC has been postponed indefinitely, more space is available for Intl. CES than previously expected. CEA Industry Affairs Senior Vice President Jason Oxman said a display of high-performance audio still will take place at the Venetian Hotel. CEA officials expect attendance to be less next year – around 100,000 – and the showfloor to be smaller – in the “seven-figure area,” according to Oxman.

Enjoy the long weekend and keep an eye on those fireworks!

Written by Brett Lipeles

Exhibits are getting taller as companies look for more ways to increase their marketing impact and overall presence at tradeshows. As exhibit vision turns ever upward, there are some important factors to consider before deciding that while maximizing the height of the exhibit, adding a second story or upper deck to the tradeshow space also is a possibility.

There are some very good reasons to build a two-story exhibit. An upper deck provides greater visibility for your exhibit and additional workspace. In addition, many customers will feel special while moving to the upper deck for meetings or looking off from a higher level to the crowds below. In addition, a meeting room placed on the upper deck will afford privacy that is very hard to match on the main exhibit floor.

However, before building an upper deck or double-deck exhibit, look very carefully at the additional hassles and costs of owning this type of an exhibit. In addition to the costs involved with building and setting-up the second floor at each and every show, storing and transporting the deck panels and structure and having the deck properly engineered, an exhibit with a second floor will be harder for you and your staff to manage. This is because it is not immediately evident when there are people on the upper story.

As a result, you will need to devise a more involved system to indicate to the receptionist that the second story space or spaces are in use. This system can be as simple as some members of your staff constantly moving up and down the steps to ascertain that the deck is in use, or a chain being hung across the railing to indicate this. Without it, there is a risk of embarrassment of bringing groups of customers upstairs, only to find out this area of your booth is already occupied.

Justifying the construction of a double-decker

There are at least three logical methods and reasons to build an upper-deck for your exhibit.

You may be able to:

1) Justify the cost based on square footage verses labor to install. With some relevant numbers and calculations, you can justify the cost of the upper deck based on a ratio of the cost to increase the exhibit square footage with an additional square footage purchase from the tradeshow association verses the cost of the upper deck and the labor required to set-up and take down the second story at each show.

2) Justify the cost based on the availability of square footage. At some shows, no additional square footage will be available for purchase, or if you purchase additional square footage, you will need to move the exhibit to a less desirable part of the trade show hall in order for show management to provide you with this space. In most of these cases, an upper-deck will allow you to gain square footage and keep your location. However, you should check with show management before proceeding with the upper-deck as the neighboring booths may complain about the height, and in many cases you will need a waiver for the exhibit to exceed 16 feet.

3) Justify the cost based on the function of an upper deck area. You may really need the privacy that only the upper deck provides, or you may want to create the psychological status for your customers that only the walk to second story will provide. On the other hand, the show may have gotten so competitive and tall, that an upper deck is the only way for you to maintain your profile amongst your competition and ascertain your prominence in the market.

Engineering certification
Once you do decide to build an upper deck, you will require a state licensed professional to provide engineering certification. This certification confirms that only the foot of each pole that holds up the second story suspends a certain amount of weight. The floors in the trade show halls are only constructed to hold up a certain amount of weight per square inch, and your upper deck will have to be certified by a professional engineer not to exceed this point load. The paperwork provided by the engineer will need to be submitted to show management before each and every show where the second story is used.

Proper upper-deck design – six critical elements

In addition to the looks of the second floor structure, a number of ergonomic and technical aspects must be included in the design. Be sure that you and your designers integrate these 6 sets of criteria into the plan:
Support footprint – Layout exactly where the support poles for the upper-deck will contact the rest of the exhibit space.

Hardware – As with all great exhibit design, the less the exhibit requires the use of nuts and bolts, and other capital-intensive hardware, the quicker and easier the set-up and dismantle. As the quantity of loose hardware decreases, the efficiency of exhibit set-up increases. A very clever design should be applied so that very few bolts, nuts and washers are used.

Height - In order not to cramp the area below the second story and make the exhibit feel small, build decks that are 9 feet or higher, at the lowest part of the upper deck structure. This will afford plenty of room for lighting, cooling lines for air conditioning and other accoutrements that need to be concealed or hung below the upper deck, allowing for adequate headroom and the grand feeling of space that you should strive to provide.

Weight – While steel will allow for the strongest structure, aluminum usually can be used and easily meet the engineer’s load and sheer requirements. For the upper-deck floor panels, there are a number of specially made composite panels available. These panels are costly but will save their cost many times over as they weigh a fraction of a panel built in a standard manner. These panels are also extremely strong structurally, it will afford you greater span between upper deck structural members and potentially less poles marring the flow of the first floor spatial layout.

Labor and machines required for installation - As with all exhibit installation, it is best if the upper-deck is designed so that it does not require labor intensive procedures and the use of special tools for installation. Larger tools, like forklifts and Genie lifts will quickly add substantial cost increases to your tradeshow display and run the budget’s bottom line. Use of these tools may also lead to project installation delays, as there are only a certain number of these machines and experienced operators at the show. Usually, a design can be created that does not require fork or Genie lifts for efficient and convenient upper deck installation.

Maximum capacity and stairways - There are necessary Fire Marshall requirements in place for upper decks and the area below them. These requirements may include the need to have sprinkler heads beneath the deck if it exceeds a certain amount of square feet, the addition of stairways if the second story exceeds a certain amount of square feet or the limitation of the number of occupants on the second floor to meet fire law requirements. Be sure to research these limitations before going ahead with an upper deck as the costs of not knowing in these situations could be monumental.

Before purchasing an exhibit with an upper deck or adding a second story to your exhibit, consider the ramifications of this specification with care. Make sure that you budget for the additional costs involved and consider the consequences for you and your staff of managing the upper level space. Make yourself familiar with the six critical design criteria and be sure that your designers and builder are keeping these criteria in mind while designing and building the upper deck.