Maui Wowi braved the New York trade unions and exhibited at the BizBash event planner trade show at the Jacob Javits convention center yesterday — and lived to tell about it. Before we get to the highlights of the show, we dedicate the first part of this blog to the word “drayage,” which is a word we hope you never have to learn very much about from your own experience in New York.
Drayage companies in New York City make more per hour, I believe, than Walter White did on a slow day. Our experience with Metropolitan Exposition — whose website proclaims “(We) believe in providing an environment that promotes a kinship with the enterpreneur (sic) in all of us.” — began when we pulled up to the loading dock on the Javits north hall and were met by stern looking, arm waving guys who must have thought we had a bomb under the chassis of our van. Once it was clear we were there simply to unload, we were given a couple of pallets, told to place our trade show material on them, and go wait at our booth for our materials to be delivered. We followed their orders. (You would have, too, trust me.)
The Princes of Drayage then forklifted our goods to a scale, weighed them, and brought them to our booth. Ten minutes start to finish. A model of efficiency. Even more efficient was the invoice that arrived in our email the next morning on the day of the trade show….for $1600 and change. (That’s $9,600 an hour.) And the 268 pounds of material we actually brought with us turned out to weigh 450 pounds on their scale (which was then rounded up to the nearest hundred, because their billing system apparently doesn’t do decimal points.) No receipt, no digital proof of the weight, just an invoice. Take their word for it.
A while later when we regained consciousness after reading the invoice, we tracked down Metropolitan’s customer service people. By the end of the day, after multiple visits to their booth, and they to ours, the bill went from $1600….to….$900…..to $470.
The moral of the story: carry your stuff in the front door, one box at a time, and hope you never have to experience the “D word” in this lifetime.
We’re going to rest now. A follow up on what we learned at BizBash is coming shortly.
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