The

Presents
PREVENTING SHOW SITE THEFT
By Jim Bale

1.Insure your freight! The first thing that you should do before shipping anything anywhere is to insure it! I know this sounds like an advertisement for the insurance industry, but the claim that you make with the General Service Contractors will be settled for between .10 and .30 cents on the pound, if you get anything at all. Yes that's pound, not dollar. Read the fine print in your exhibitor kit. This is the normal liability for damages or loss to any of your booth freight. And that is only for incoming freight or damage to your freight only. There is NO liability assumed by the contractors for any thing left in EMPTY STORAGE or anything that may come up missing from your outbound shipment.

2. Lock up your valuables!The next best thing to putting a 24 hour guard on your booth, is to get a locking "security cage". You sometimes see these cages with steel mesh sides and top or with solid steel sides and top. Usually with large caster wheels. They usually are large enough to hold  some or all of your computers, A-V equipment, tools or anything else that may be of value. These cages are usually packed wherever your shipment originates from and the cage is shipped to the showsite locked. It is not unlocked until it arrives at your booth and you pull the key out of your pocket. These cages can sometimes be rented or borrowed from your freight hauler. With some advance notice they usually can be rented from most Service Contractors or the Security Contractor for the show.  Usually there will be something about the availability of these cages in your exhibitor kit. Make sure that you bring your own lock along or run out and purchase a good padlock from a local hardware store.  If the cage is rented or borrowed, make sure that the cage is in good, sturdy condition. Some cages are so old that the hinges won't allow the doors or top to close completely leaving a gap big enough to stick an arm into. You should also keep in mind that some of these cages open from the top as well as the front. A lot of exhibitors don't know this. When they padlock the front doors, the top is still free to be lifted up and opened. These kind of cages are slowly being fazed out for that reason.

3.  Accessible storage When you have items of value that you are not going to use during the show, or are only for backup in case something breaks in the booth, or you have giveaways that you don't have room to store in your booth, there is a service that all of the GSC's provide. It is called "Accessible Storage". Putting your valuables in Accessible Storage accomplishes two things for you. You will be able to get into any of the stored items during the show to either re-stock some give-away items or maybe swap out a monitor that died on you.  Also, Accessible Storage is normally the first items returned to the booths at shows end, even before the empties are returned. This allows you to start packing your precious valuables as soon as the show is over. When you place your security cages in Accessible Storage, they may be placed in your booth after the close of show each evening, for you to place your valuables in. In the morning, prior to show opening you unpack the cage and the cage is then taken away until after the close of show that evening. A very common practice.

      A few contractors have a flat rate charge of one hour, for putting items into Accessible Storage. This sometimes doesn't work because experienced exhibitors or I & D companies will find this out and try to put some or all of their empties into Accessible Storage. They do this to try and get their empties back early. Of course, this doesn't work because we would have to load lots and lots of trailers full of un-needed Accessible Storage but the contractors would only be getting paid for one hour. Some contractors charge by the cubic foot (old fashioned method). This is both tedious and time consuming. If the storage only takes up a four square foot area of trailer space, then who cares how tall the storage is.  Most contractors will charge by the floor space taken up and usually by four square foot increments. (The size of a normal pallet). Which means that for every pallet (or pallet sized article) you put into storage, there would be a charge. Then there will be a charge for accessing the items during the show. Most contractors here in Southern California, make concessions for exhibitors in this case. If an exhibitor just wants to either look for some item in storage or pull a few things out of storage himself, there usually is no charge to the exhibitor. It's when Teamsters are needed to bring in the items that  charges are added on.

      I know that some convention centers throughout the country allow Accessible Storage to be kept inside of the hall. This is good for exhibitors because it allows them to visit their storage as often as they like without a threat of being charged. The down side to this is that this storage freight is left un-secured and accessible to anyone that walks by. This isn't even an issue here in Southern California. The Fire Marshall's do not allow any type of storage inside of the exhibit halls. You can plan on your storage being kept secured inside of trailers.

4. Secure your freight before shipping! You say that you don't have enough valuable equipment to warrant renting a security cage? Maybe all you have is a TV/VCR combination? Thetas Ok. Just DON'T ship it in the original carton that you bought it in. That is just advertising the contents. Don't make it any easier for the thief by letting them know which carton has what inside. At the very least, re-pack the item into a plain cardboard carton and shrinkwrap it with the rest of your freight. (More about shrink-wrapping later). Once the freight arrives at the next showsite, the exhibitors and I & D people will want to know what is inside those cartons without having to open each one up to find out. When packing your booth up, try numbering each carton and then manifesting the contents by number onto a sheet of paper. Then at the next showsite you can pull out your manifest and unpack accordingly.

      When shipping something that is both fragile and valuable, the best thing to do is to pack the item into an "anvil" type case. But for heavens sake, get one that you can put a padlock on. Some cases are flimsy and as easy to break into as cardboard cartons. It is also incredible to me how many people ship items in fiber cases that are completely un-locked. They are nervous about the item being broken but not about the item getting stolen. An un-locked case is an invitation to a thief and getting into one of these cases is as easy as opening an un-locked suitcase. The best way to ship these items is along with your booth (fiber cases) and literature (cartons) on a pallet. Then shrink-wrap the pallet. Shrink-wrap it good. From top to bottom. Use black or non see-through shrink-wrap. When the thief can't see the contents, it's easier to move on to one that you can see. Shrink-wrapping also makes it difficult for someone to hide or cover up and tampering of the skid. Try and get into a shrink-wrapped skid with as little damage to the shrinkwrap as you can. Then try to make it look like it was never touched.. Almost impossible to get it back the way it was. The thief will either have to re-shrink the whole skid, which takes way too much time, or will have to take all of the shrinkwrap off. That is why it is so important to label each and every piece on that skid before you shrink wrap it. Make sure that when you ship the skid, you mark on the original bill-of-lading that your are shipping X number of cartons on 1 shrink-wrapped skid. If you ship your pallet of shrink-wrapped freight as ONE skid,  who's to say how many pieces were shipped on that skid. The skid could have been shipped six feet tall and arrived being only two feet tall. It's best to put a piece count on the bill of lading. As detailed as possible. Most freight companies and General Service Contractors will sign for a shrink-wrapped skid as "one skid". That is why the original Bill of Lading must have the original piece count on it. And for heaven sake, carry your notebook computers and your laptop's with you. That's why they make them that small.

5. Ask for verification of arrival! When shipping to the General Service Contractor's advance freight warehouse, don't be afraid to call them and getverification that your shipment has arrived intact. Call the Account Executive who handles the show or the Freight Manager. If they are unavailable, get a hold of the actual Freight General Foreman or the Warehouse Foreman. They should be able to get you the information you need. I have answered hundreds of phone calls from exhibitors wanting to know if their freight made it OK. This really helps a lot if there is a glitch and the freight either doesn't arrive on time or in a damaged condition. Shipping early and verifying early may give you enough time to replace a lost or damaged item before show time.

     And please remember that the show contractor is usually working on several shows simultaneously, so when calling the contractor, you should have all the pertinent information on at the ready, such as: Company Name, Show Name, Booth Number, etc. The same information that you included on the shipping labels. You did put all of that important information on the shipping labels, didn't you?

6.  You can't put too much information on those forms and labels!  One of the biggest misconceptions that exhibitors have is that the Trade Show that they are attending is the only show going on at the time. They don't realize that General Service Contractor's may have, and usually do, have several shows going on at any one time. Some of the shows may even be very similar in nature. For example, there may be several medical shows that they are receiving freight for at the same time.  It's not uncommon to receive freight from the same company for two or three different shows. All having different show dates and venues. If these shipments don't have clear show names and booth numbers, things could get screwed up pretty easy. In other words, make sure that you, your shipping labels and your bills of lading all have the following important information:  Always include the Show Name, Show Location, Your Company Name, Booth Number, and Show Dates. The labels should also include the piece counts such as item one of fifteen, etc. I can't tell you how many times a shipment has come in to the warehouse addressed only to an exhibitor's name. MR. FRED JONES.  No company name, no show name, no booth number or any other identifying marks that could help us identify which show this particular piece of freight belongs to. It is frustrating. Of course we make phone calls when we can but there is always the chance that someone on the dock will assume that your shipment is for the wrong show and presto chango, your shipment gets buried into a trailer headed for the wrong show. This piece of freight will be found eventually but by then, it's probably too late. The best thing to do is actually use the pre-printed shipping labels that come in your exhibitor kit. They already have the important information on them. They give them to you so use them.

7. Bring the shipping information with you to showsite!  As the exhibitor, you are the person who will be at the showsite. You are the only person who will be able to help yourself should an error occur. You must make sure that you have with you, copies of all of the original shipping documents. This applies to anyone that may be manning the booth and also to the people that will be receiving the freight when show is over. I can't tell you how many times I have heard an exhibitor exclaim that a piece of freight is missing from his shipment or the whole shipment is missing but he or she has no idea what carrier was used to ship the freight, how many total pieces were actually shipped or the tracking or pro numbers of the shipment. Some exhibitors actually don't know that they have something missing from their booth until they have opened up all of their cartons, crates and cases and begin to set up the booth. This, of course, usually happens on a weekend,  when the exhibitors home office or shipping facility is closed and inaccessible. The General Service Contractors are pretty helpless when it comes to tracking down your freight unless you have the pertinent information that allows us to track your shipment. The contractors can tell you what you have on site, but can't tell you what you are supposed to have. You will have to know that information.

8.  Open your exhibitor kit, fill out the drayage forms and label your freight!There is a form that is included in most exhibitor kits. This form asks you to give specific information about your freight, such as, the number of items you are shipping to the show or the advance warehouse,  what carrier you will be using,  your re-shipping information (for the out of the show) your choice of outbound carrier and destination address.  Believe it or not, this information does help when it comes down to searching for an item that is presumed missing from show site.  It is also a good idea, especially when shipping cartons or other loose items un-palletized, to number your pieces. Example: 5 cartons, each marked 1 of 5, 2 of 5, 3 of 5, 4 of 5, and 5 of 5. This helps in the search for your freight. It also helps you to know what it is that you are missing exactly, just in case you may have to replace the missing pieces for that show.

9. Take inventory of your equipment before unpacking booth!  It is very important that you NOT throw away or send away any empty cartons or crates until you know that you have everything that was shipped to you. It makes it very difficult to trace any packages, especially pieces shipped to you via UPS or Federal Express if the freight that you did get has been unpacked and the containers discarded or taken away to empty storage. The tracking numbers for these carriers are on the packages themselves, therefore there is no way to actually verify your pieces by tracking numbers, once the containers are gone.  Most contractors either scan your small packages (if the packages are bar-coded) or at the very least, will write up each individual shipment onto "Receiving Reports" where they will manually write the tracking numbers for each piece on the report. This receiving report is then turned into the exhibitor service desk where the information is entered into the computer. So the best thing to do is take immediate inventory of all of your freight. Since you were smart enough to bring a copy of the original bill of lading, you know weather everything that was shipped has arrived or if it is in the same condition as when it was shipped.

10. The problems with shipping UPS or Federal express!  A major problem that arises when you ship anything to the show site or the advance freight warehouse via UPS or Federal Express is that regardless of how many pieces you ship, they count each individual piece as a separate shipment. In other words, if you ship 10 cartons of literature via UPS at the same time from the same location, they could conceivably arrive to the destination on 10 different days. Shipping pieces together via UPS or Federal Express does not guarantee that they will all arrive at the same time. Another disadvantage to shipping either of these 2 methods is that receiving, sorting, writing or scanning each individual package is very labor intensive. That is why a lot of contractors still charge a regular drayage minimum charge for receiving these packages. I have done shows where we will receive thousands of packages a day just from these 2 carriers. They literally will show up to show site with 2 or 3 full truckloads. Let's face it, a lot of companies have accounts with these carriers and use and depend on them for their day-to-day shipping needs. Don't get me wrong, I do know and agree that this is part of our job. To receive freight from whom ever the carrier is. But with these two particular carriers, especially on larger shows, we will spend much of the day unloading, sorting, and writing up you shipments before they can be distributed to the booths.

11. Before ringing the missing freight alarm, take a look around your booth!If you believe that you may be missing some freight that was shipped to the show site via UPS or Federal Express, here are a couple of things that you should do and know before tracing your freight. If you arrive at your booth to find some or all of your freight missing, take a quick look around. The first thing you should know is that the freight handlers have a tendency to put your freight inside of your booth. This helps keep the aisles clear so they can travel freely up and down with forklifts and electric carts. If there is some freight in your booth but some pieces are noticeably missing, take a peek into your neighbors booth. Look on both sides. Look under the tables, look behind the curtain. You know what your freight looks like better then we do. You would be able to spot it a lot quicker then we can, so before putting out the search party, please take a quick look around to make sure it isn't just a booth or two away. We don't expect you to pound the floor searching for your booth, just in the immediate vicinity. I find that about 80% of missing freight is found within a 20 foot radius of the booth. If you find your freight away from your booth, don't even think twice about going to the service desk or even better, talking to the show or hall freight foreman about getting the freight moved over into the right area.

12.  How and why does freight get lost once it's at showsite?   There are some good reasons why your freight could be moved from your booth during setup of a show. There are NO good reasons why that same freight shouldn't be returned to your booth in the same condition that it was found before being moved. Here are some reasons: Sometimes the freight handlers put your freight in your booth before the decorators have had a chance to put your rental carpet down. The decorators then remove your freight from the booth to lay the carpet. Most decorators are on foot and not privy to a forklift at the time they are at the booth to lay the carpet, so they will pull or move the freight to the closest space that is off the carpet area. Sometimes the space they put your freight in is your neighbor's booth space. Sometimes it is behind the curtain to the rear of your booth. Of course, a perfect world would mean that once the carpet is laid, the freight would be returned to it's rightful booth. Alas. The world and us are far from perfect.  Another scenario may be that if your freight was received loose, (un-palletized) at the advance receiving warehouse.  The warehousemen may have put your freight together on a pallet mixed in with other booth freight from surrounding booths to allow for easy loading and unloading of the freight. If you ship your booth freight loose, such as via UPS or Federal Express, it usually is handled in this manner.  Sometimes the freight handler will drop a mixed pallet of freight at the booth number of the top carton on the skid. Not looking at the other cartons to determine if this is one or many shipments on the pallet.  There is no defense for this careless action.  Later your freight may be found along with other exhibitors missing freight, mixed together on that same pallet, buried underneath  30 other cartons.  I would like to say that this would only happen on rare occasion but in reality it happens more often then we like to admit.  In defense of the Freight Handlers, I would like to say that after delivering hundreds and hundreds of cartons and cases, they do begin to blend in to each other. They begin looking more and more similar. Sometimes if the freight handlers concentration level isn't at it's usual peak operating level,  he can easily mistake one booth number for another. Booth 109 upside down is Booth 601, etc.

I have found that about  90% of alleged missing freight is found within 10' of the booth space that it belongs in. The moral here is, before reporting the freight missing, please take a quick look around your booth area. It could save you a lot of time and aggravation.

13.  Gather all of your documentation before approaching the service desk!  If you have searched the immediate area to no avail, then it's time to arm your self with the proper information so you sound knowledgeable when you walk up to the service desk. Many exhibitors have stormed up to the service desk ready to blame their freight problems directly on the contractor and have left feeling very sheepish and helpless. They just didn't have enough information to even begin a legitimate search for their freight. I would venture to say that if we sent out search parties for every piece of reported missing freight, without verifying whether the missing freight was actually ever received, these shows would not open on time or not at all. No one would be bringing in freight, unloading trucks, or pulling empties. Nope, we would all be looking for missing freight that never got shipped or never made it to the showsite.

   The most important piece of information that you can have here is the tracking or pro number for each piece of freight shipped or for each shipment. You will need this to call the carrier for tracing. Most large carriers will have a 800 number setup for just such a reason. The next pertinent piece of information you will need is the name of the person that allegedly signed for these packages. Now, you must keep in mind that since these carriers treat each package as an individual shipment, then when they drop off two, three, or five hundred packages at a time, there is no way that we can verify each and every package before the driver leaves. Therefore, it is normal to count the total number of packages received and sign for them as one bulk shipment. Then these packages can begin to be sorted and identified. So when you call Federal Express and tell them that you only received four out of your five pieces and they tell you that they show all five of your pieces as being delivered and they have a signature to prove it, what they really mean is: YES they made a delivery that day to the show site and YES some of your packages were included in that delivery and YES they have a signature of someone that signed for the whole lot. I can assure you that what the contractor shows as being received for you is exactly what was received for you.

14.  More problems with UPS and Federal Express! It is very common especially during larger shows, to receive mis-delivered freight from both of UPS and Federal Express. This freight will be returned to the respective carriers of course but it shows that mistakes do happen on both sides of the fence.  I certainly am not trying to dissuade anyone from using either of these two carriers,  I am simply saying that if you are shipping your own freight to the show site or advance freight warehouse or you have control of how your shipments get shipped, why not make it easy on yourself, put your pieces together on a pallet, shrink-wrap them and ship them together with your booth via a reputable common carrier, van line, or air freight company.

15.  If your budget allows, hire live security!  Another method for protecting your booth on site is to hire show security to have security guards man your booth. This service is usually included in exhibitor kits when it is deemed necessary. You usually contract directly with the show security contractor to have someone physically at your booth during all hours that the show is not running. This could include setup and tear down and during the run of the show after hours. I have seen security personnel manning booths up until the last piece of freight was taken off of the floor and loaded into a truck.

16. When do most tradeshow thefts occur?  I can tell you from my experiences in dealing with thefts that most of them happen during the time that the empty containers are being removed and during the move out of the show. Most thieves will take into consideration the problems that may arise from a theft of an important item such as a computer before the show actually opens. The thieves know that most exhibitors and contractors will keep searching for that missing item all during the move in and during the shows running. The exhibitor could possibly report the fact that he has a piece of valuable equipment missing to the Show Management as well as the General Contractor.  The thief knows that this will stir things up a bit. The thief doesn't want commotion. He wants to quietly slither in for his prey and slither back out.  Stealing something early on in the show may even leave time enough for the local police to be called in to investigate. Most trade show thieves wait for the show to move out. Why? Because about 95% of the time, the exhibitor will pack his booth up, make the shipping arrangements and be on a plane home as quickly as he can. When the booth is left unattended is when the theft usually occurs. To the thief, the victim becomes a faceless, nameless, corporation. In fact, in his mind, there is no victim.

    Having been a Trade Show Foreman for most of my 22 years in the industry, I can attest to the fact that there is nothing more discouraging or demoralizing for me personally, then to have to try to explain to an exhibitor where his or her freight might be or why we had to change the piece count on a Bill of Lading that he or she filled out due to it being one piece short at the time we were to load out the shipment.

   The exhibitor is putting a lot of trust in the freight handlers. This is not necessarily done by his own choice and that makes it worse. We tell the exhibitor that because we are union, he has no choice but to put his trust in you. When that trust is betrayed, it puts all of us as freight handlers and Teamsters, in a very bad light. It takes away from any of the good jobs that we have done. It adds to the stereotype of Teamsters being thieves and thugs. The victims don't go home telling stories of how wonderful the Teamsters are after suffering a loss.

     As a show foreman, the paperwork that I must go through and the leg work that I must endure while searching for something that is no longer there,  is nothing compared to the anger and frustration that an exhibitor feels after being stolen from. It could mean his job or it could mean his business.

    Of course, eventually the thieves do get caught. The one thing that they cannot hide or cover up will eventually get them caught. It's called greed. Some of these thieves will take things just for sport. I believe that with a little education, a lot of exhibitors will be able to take the necessary precautions to help thwart this epidemic and stem the tide of showsite thievery.