Thursday, July 21, 2011

Trade Show Tax Tips

Trade shows are great for bringing together the industry’s most important players and prospects. But all that product-seeking and hand-shaking comes at a cost. Airfares, hotels and restaurant meals represent a hit to your bottom line.

Uncle Sam does offer some respite for the trade-show traveler, however. Prudent and thorough deductions of travel expenses on your income-tax returns can help soften the financial blow.

Link to full article

Friday, July 15, 2011

How to Use Social Media to Maximize Your Trade Show Presence

Trade shows are places to meet and greet, schmooze, and hopefully, gather leads by the bucketful. But they are also one of the most competitive battlefields in business. After all, where else are all the competitors in any one sector lined up row after row, one after the other, competing for customers? Read more

Monday, July 4, 2011

You Want Me to Pay What? Part I

Upon speaking with show services providers, the exhibitor was floored to learn that she would have to pay $500+ for a simple pedestal and $200+ for a simple high boy table. No way! During the show, she couldn’t quite comprehend the $1,000+ charges for Internet service—especially since her laptop picked uLinkp a full wireless signal from the onsite Internet cafe the whole time, at no charge. Really? After the show, the exhibitor was flabbergasted to learn that her boss had received an invoice for almost $500 in additional labor charges… on top of the several hundred dollars’ worth of charges for services that had already been paid onsite. After all, no one in show services had mentioned those additional charges.

Some industry professionals might read this recount with outrage over the additional expenses associated with exhibiting. Others might view these charges as par for the course and might still be waiting for the punch line.

Here, in the first installment of a three-part series, PlannerWire heard from exhibitors and trade show professionals about how exhibiting expenses are impacting some companies today. Full article from PlannerWire