Tracey Schropp - Exhibitor Magazine

“The Saving Costs During an Economic Downturn challenge”:
This next objective in managing the Productronica exhibit production was met in several
ways. The first one as mentioned earlier was by cuts made from an initial booth plan of
192 sqm for €125,000 to arrive at a 150 sqm stand with an estimated cost of €84,500.
This one-third reduction was achieved mainly by reducing floor space, removing three
meeting rooms and replacing with open meeting areas.
Another way to save costs involved changes to the booth construction for 2009 from the
previous tradeshow in 2007. By removing structures and some costly graphics, and
making some changes to materials used in fabrication, the savings were about 33.5%
(from €55,526 to €36,926), or over $27K to be allocated amongst the companies.
Having a third company to share costs instead of just two like in 2007 provided
extraordinary savings, specifically for Nordson ASYMTEK, as shown in the table below:
Allocations by % to: 2007 Euros split 2009 Euros split
Nordson ASYMTEK 74% 70,056 40% 29,002
Nordson EFD 26% 24,614 26% 18,852
Nordson YESTECH 34% 24,652
Booth Build 55,526 36,926
Stand Raw Space 39,144 35,580
TOTAL 100% 94,670 100% 72,506
In addition to the above, each company was responsible for their own costs of travel,
promotions, specific utilities and graphics, and individual freight. As advised in Session
72001/72101: “Global Exhibiting: An Introductory Overview”, I also needed to consider a
contingency fund for unforeseen costs such as the increasing currency exchange rate
and changes in inflation.
According to the detailed expense analysis that I had prepared for Nordson ASYMTEK
(*Productronica Detail Reporting of Costs can be found in the Appendix, page 46),
some other significant cost savings from the 2007 show included 26% less in travel
(sent less people), 61% in hospitality and catering (reduced the cocktail party and
skipped the all-day sales training meeting), and 75% saved in international and local
freight (by not sending machinery from USA and shipping half the machines as in 2007).
In conclusion, Nordson ASYMTEK reduced the cost of exhibiting at Productronica 2009
by 47.5% or $76,942 in total (from $162K to $85K) compared to Productronica 2007.
CTSM Portfolio – Tracey Schropp Page 18