I work for a major national General Service Contractor in the Southern California area where I am in charge of the Freight Operations. I must tell you that there is a story of folklorical proportions circulating throughout the industry. The myth that the General Service Contractors make some fantastic windfall profits from exhibitors or freight companies by re-routing outbound freight to the contractors "Official" carriers. This could not be further from the truth. Yes, the contractors receive a loading allowance from their official contractors. This allowance is only to make up for the fact that the Contractors are using expensive union labor to load the carriers trailers with freight. If there was no loading allowance, drayage charges would rise. And we all know that drayage charges are already high. This load allowance is a very small amount. The real reason for having "Official" freight carriers is the fact that the contractors must borrow trailers from the freight carriers to move their decorating properties and freight back and forth between their warehouses and venues. There are many venues and shows that require the use of hundreds of trailers to store empties and load decorating materials in and out of the show. If the contractors had to own enough trailers to be able to handle these large shows, the cost would be astronomical, not to mention that they would need yards the size of stadium parking lots to store these trailers in. That is why you always see so many different carrier trailers at showsites.
As for "forcing" freight, the General Service Contractors here in Southern California go to great lengths to get exhibitor freight loaded onto the designated carriers. If the exhibitor kit (which has to be the least read piece of literature on the planet) states that exhibitor move-out is scheduled from 5:00pm to 9:00pm on the night the show breaks and from 8:00am to 12:00noon the following day, this means that the latest your driver must check in by is noon the day after the show breaks. It's all in black and white but just as a little reminder, the contractors usually print up a Move-Out Bulletin and deliver one to each booth usually along with an invoice, sometime while the show is running. This bulletin simply reminds exhibitors of the need to pick up their Bills of Lading from the Service Desk, fill them out, and then return them back to the service desk. It also reminds exhibitors of the designated times for driver check-in and move-out. Some contractors even deliver a pre-printed Bill-of-Lading to the booths. All the Exhibitor has to do is fill in the blanks and turn it back into the Service Desk.
No contractor can afford to have union personnel sitting around waiting and hoping that an exhibitors designated carrier will show up allthough the contractors will make every effort to track down your carrier if it can be done. If an exhibitors carrier has not showed up by the designated time, the service desk will usually attempt to notify the exhibitor of an impending problem. The service desk will call carriers and/or exhibitors when needed. That's why it is such a good idea to put the carriers phone number along with your phone number, right on the bill-of-lading. But because most shows break in the evenings and on weekends and a lot of exhibitors are still traveling when the freight pickup deadline comes around, it is very difficult to reach exhibitors until its too late.
Legitimate Freight is what I refer to freight that can be matched up to B.O.L.s that have been turned in to the Service Desk by an Exhibitor and the carrier has checked in to pick it up. It is on rare occasion that all of the legitimate freight is loaded off of the show floor by the designated force time. This means that we are usually still loading freight out well past the designated cut-off time. So if your carrier is late but we are still loading out legitimate freight, he will still be loaded out. I have been doing tradeshows for over 20 years and I have never seen a carrier get turned away while his freight is still sitting on the show floor. We will even dig freight out of an allready loaded trailer to give it to the designated carrier.
There are a couple of reasons why your freight would be "forced" to the Official Carrier. First of all, exhibitors must read their Exhibitor Kits. It gives all the pertinent times and dates. Next, exhibitors must take into consideration the day that the show moves out. If you usually use a common carrier (Yellow, Roadway, C.F., ABF, etc.) to move your freight around and the show pulls out on a weekend, your probably looking at getting your freight forced. Not many common carriers work on weekends. Another good way to get your freight forced is to consign your outbound freight to either U.P.S. or Federal Express. Rarely do I see Federal Express come to a tradeshow to pickup and U.P.S. is almost nonexistent. UPS requires an on-site service or entity to gather up and consolidate the shipments and ready them for pickup. This is usually done through the hotels or business centers but require the exhibitor to haul the freight to their designated pickup area.
When the Federal Express or UPS driver gets to the venue, he looks for the freight that has been called in for pickup that he has on his pickup list. If, for some reason, either your booth didn't make it on his list or he has too many stops yet to make, he will not take the shipments that he cannot identify as being called in for pickup. I'm sure they have good reasons for doing this but nevertheless, it leaves an awful lot of freight sitting in the exhibit hall with no place to go.
By far the biggest reason that we must force freight from the show floor is lack of outbound shipping documents being left by exhibitors. I'm not sure if it's because exhibitors each think that the other person in the booth is taking care of the shipping arrangements or if they are just naive enough to believe that leaving their freight packed up in their booths is enough to get the freight shipped out onto their pre-designated carrier. Legally, we cannot give your freight to your carrier without something in writing from you stating such. That is what Bills of Lading's are for. It tells the contractor who you have designated as your freight carrier, it tells your freight carrier how many pieces should be in the booth for shipping, and tells the carrier where you want the freight sent to. As you can see, Bills of Lading are very important documents. Just leaving your freight in the booth, even with a Bill of Lading sitting on the freight, is inviting trouble. Besides, if an exhibitor does not turn in a Bill of Lading to the service desk, he will not have any proof that he shipped anything anywhere. When you turn in the B.O.L. to the desk, the desk will usually put a Pro Label on the different copies of the bill and hand you your copy. This is what you need to trace your freight should it become lost.
Well there you have it. Just follow these simple guidelines and you should have a worry free tradeshow. Good luck.
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