Moscow Exhibitions: Booth design, trends etc

I just came back from an exhibition in Moscow, called Intercharm. The event was large, expensive and hard as usual. 4 days of 12-hour shifts with little sleep and a lot of presentation work. Since I work in St. Petersburg, some of the issues regarding this Moscow event were somewhat strange to me. Not that I did not know about them, but rather that they seem worth underlining to me.

The event takse place in the Crocus Center outside Moscow. The complex includes 4 exhibition halls a mall, a concert hall and a hotel. The hotel is a 3-star, but during the Intercharm, room rates went up to 400 USD per night. So, we had to live in Moscow and take an hour-long ride in the Moscow subway to the exhibition.

We had the booth designed by a St. Petersburg exhibition company we've been working with for over a decade. They are good guys, but the designer seems a bit lazy. Generally, I draw the booth oiutline in Google Sketchup and send them a Jpeg so that they know, what I mean.

They do the graphics, we approved the final design, which looked somewhat like that:

We have abandoned the idea of using standard-issue constructions, as it is very important to stand out on a major exhibition, given that forst-row booths are somehow NEVER EVER given to anyone except the big Moscow companies.  So, during the planning, my major concerns were:
- The booth should stand out
- The booth should allow to vizualise the goods
- The booth should have a large storage space
- The audiovisual systems should work all right durig the show

I designed some kind of an original system for this exhibition. Out company is not rich enough to compose a 2 meter wide screeo of 4 HDTV's mounted on a frame, so I found a cheaper solution. The wall of the storage room is actually a screen for the projector, mounted on the side of the tower stand to the right. The distance is about 4 meters, so, given the slight shade from the banner, the 3000 lumen projector provides a sufficiently clear picture. It has to be on top, so that the image does not get abstructed by people, working at the booth.

I used my notebook as a source for films, presentations and slide shows, while the camera, connected via HDMI allowed to show large images of cosmetic procedures on the improvized screen. This is very useful, when presenting products for the use on the face. In the nail business, not having a system with a camera feed on a large screen is suisidal.

I have my favorite sound system, composed of a 3 "in" mixer from Mackey, a SHURE wireless system and a  pair of studio monitors (I have been usiung the M-Audio BX 5A for the last 3 years). The studio monitors are powerful enough, still, they are small and can be used at home for the rest of the year. A total of 18 meters of audio cables allows to move the gear freely across the booth.

I always start the exhibition by taking a walk around, asking the neighbours, if the level of sound on my booth is comfortable to them.

Now back to the Crocus center.

Surprises are:
- Paid acess for trucks with exibition materials ($250)
- No printing facilities (only one copy machine at the service reception, making copies for 50 cents a page and printing for 90 cents a page. We always take a printer to the exhibition, as 1500 pages is not the limit for "suddenly run out papers".
- Bad food
- Paid wifi in the exhibition hall. Wifi acess costs $150 for 4 days for 1 computer and mobile internet fails frequently inside the exhibition complex.

Now to the market trends.
It seems that Russian cosmetologists and their clients have decided to go mad. I have repeatedly heard the following phrase: "Blah, you've got c-o-s-m-e-t-i-c-s! Ahh, that stuff never works. We are here for injection therapy only! Well, seems like most of Moscow's well-to-do ladies start having botox at 25 and a multitude of mesotherapy coctails, fillers, gels, placenta extracts, stem cell extracts and the like injected int their skin. This may sound stange for European ears, but it is generally true for the Russian metropolia. Take into account the fact that some cosmetologists often can't boast anything except a degree in nursing and most "injection therapy classes" last 2-3 days "on condition of a purchase" and you will get the idea of what a market that is.

After it all ended, I went to a knife exhibition to hear a lovely story of one of the knife-selling companies having had an exployee arrested right at the exhibition after the police managed to trick her into skipping the paperwork. =) Well, I am so glad I left Moscow for home!

Kickstart: SMM, marketing or sales?

It turns out, I will most likely start with next to no starting captal and with next to no experience in venture capitalism. Shortly, sorry, bro, no money.

Well, here are some pre-business plan ideas. So I have found this supplier, who sells this simple equipment. I happen to know people, who will be looking forward to buy that from me quite quickly. So, clearly, the first steps will be about personal sales. Like, I get a batch, sell most of it, reinvest the funds, sell again.

The key elements for goods for this period:
- Not perishable. An item can be sold after a year in storage with no loss in value
- Light & compact. Cheaper transport fees, less storage space required
- Simple. No service support, no 50-page user manuals. The client knows what to do with the stuff

So, it crystalizes into:

- B2B
- Homogenious assortment
- Maximizing speed rather than quantity

Sanitary Control - continued

If you are importing something like cosmetics or foods to Russia, expect sanitary control issues.

We are abnormal people. We have like 350 positions in the invoice, which have 24 certificates, issued for groups of products.

The first reaction of the sanitary control people at the airport was "We can't check your invoice, way too big. Go to the central office (20 km into the city through heavy traffic)". I moaned, I ripped my hair and beat my head against the wall. They agreed and checked the invoice in 4 hours.

Next time I came, I had the boss of the department telling me, my cargo was too complex for the territorial office to check. I asked: "Cam I help?" The answer was, "Take the invoice and write the certificate number with a pencil for every position. Err, like put numbers like 1,2,3 on the certificates and err, put those numbers on the invoice".

I made a reference table, binding certificate numbers to item ref. numbers (excel rules). Printed the thing - this became a 30+ page document, but they agreed to work with it.

Now, we have an agreement: I will give them an offiicial invoice translation + a paper, with the invoice sorted by certificate number (the same as before). They say, it is going to take them an hour or so with such a table.

Looks like a guideline to fight bureaucracy.