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TECHNOLOGY ASSOCIATION
EDITOR’S NOTE
P R O J E C T I O N L I G H T S & S TA G I N G N E W S
By RichardCadena
The Zen of the Perfect Trade Show
The Publication of Record for the Lighting,
Staging and Projection Industries
Publisher
Terry Lowe
tlowe@plsn.com
Every year, the “lumenati” (the enlightened
members of the lighting industry)
come to the Big Trade Show (the
BTS), hungering for a taste of the latest
technology, thirsting for a long drink from
the well of new products, and they go home
with aching heads and sore feet. Next year,
we all promise, we’ll all sing the praises of the
BTS, but this year we’ve had our fill. Then we
all beat a hasty retreat to the comfort of our
stacks of virtual paper and our grand To-Do
lists.
But there is a better way. While it was
still fresh in our minds — though our minds
have been rendered soft and mushy from
the slate of trade show activity — we journeyed
to the mountain top (metaphorically
speaking, of course — everyone knows we
just Googled it) to meditate on the mystery
of The Perfect Trade Show and how to
achieve it. It turns out that the mystery is the
door to understanding. In other words, it’s a
Zen thing. Here are the keys to the mystery:
The Perfect Trade Show has no
beginning and no end.
The Perfect Trade Show...
...has no beginning and no end. There is
never a right time to leave the office, and
there is never enough time to see everything
at a trade show. Can’t we just eliminate
those two small details?
...is infinitesimal in size but infinite in space.
Trade shows are so spread out that it takes
too much of your valuable time to traipse
across the show floor to get from one side
to the other. Yet we love our massive booths
with obscene displays of vast numbers of
moving colored lights. Let’s combine both
big and small in the same location and be
done with it. That’s what Einstein was working
on when he stumbled upon e=mc 2 .
...has no crowds but lots of people. If our
trade shows continue to be so insanely
crowded, pretty soon no one will go, and
then we won’t be able to see all of our old
friends and make new ones. Zen master Yogi
Berra taught us that one.
...takes no time at all, yet fills your day. Why
does it take so much time out of the day to
attend a trade show? And then when it’s
over, why does it seem like the blink of an
eye? Scientists call this the persistence of
perception. We call it lousy clock management.
Other people blame it on the hangover
after the 4Wall party.
...makes no sound and has no feel. If everyone
wasn’t talking at the same time, it
wouldn’t be so loud on the show floor, and
we might get more accomplished. The PTS
uses a talking token that is passed from exhibitor
to exhibitor, and only those in possession
of the token may speak. At the end
of the day, your feet still hurt. Sometimes the
PTS is the just like a plain old trade show.
...is devoid of convention food, yet fills
you up. Ten dollars for a cold sandwich?
Really? At the PTS there is no convention
food other than the information that
fills your brain with all of the nutrients it
needs, which is to say you’ll never make it
past the RDM Pavilion.
...is nowhere and everywhere at the
same time. Holding a trade show in Las Vegas
is like holding a Phish concert in a cow
pasture. It just encourages the attendees
to do what people do in Las Vegas and in
cow pastures. The perfect trade show location
is in a cow pasture (nowhere) during
a Phish concert (they’re everywhere).
...hungers for knowledge and thirsts for
information. Let’s face it — trade shows
are there to pay for a free trip to Las Vegas,
get free swag, get you out of the office
and to give you an excuse not to reply to
e-mail for three days. And let’s not forget
about the parties. At least that’s what our
spouses think. But we all know we go for
the intellectual stimulation.
...imparts wisdom without invoking
lines. Standing in lines is for grade school
kids. Therefore, the PTS will never be in Las
Vegas. (See #4 above.)
...is both good and evil. The good: beginning,
the middle, and the end; the evil:
the beginning, the middle, and the end.
For the LDI 2010 show report, turn to page
24. For more riddles with no answers, e-mail
Richard Cadena at rcadena@plsn.com.
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