From Saturday through Monday, America's Beauty Show overtook McCormick Place West, bringing with it a tooth-whitening machine, thousands of nail polish bottles, and a seemingly endless array of haircare products. Cosmetologists Chicago owns and produces the show, which attracted about 52,000 salon-industry professionals this year. The ornately coiffed crowd spent the weekend watching fashion shows, attending educational seminars, and prowling the trade show floor to check out the latest products from some 391 beauty companies.
According to Patricia Dwyer, senior manager of convention and trade show services at association management company Smith Bucklin, creating a floor plan for all 391 of those exhibitors was the greatest challenge of the yearlong planning process. While the managing team had an initial layout down on paper last May, last-minute exhibitors signed up until three months before the event, sparking multiple revisions. "A good portion of the show floor is assigned to distributors, not corporate manufacturers," Dwyer said. It takes months for distributors to get manufacturers on board for the show, and several more months for exhibitors to decide just how much space they want to purchase.
The long decision process is especially typical of up-and-coming brands. "There may be a new hairspray on the market that's going to change all of our lives," Dwyer said. "But those emerging companies don't usually have all their ducks in a row [for exhibiting] until they've been through another show."
Oftentimes, new companies learn the ropes at Long Beach's International Salon and Spa Expo, which took place in late January this year; it wasn't until that show ended that some exhibitors had a clear idea of how much space they'd need at McCormick Place. Dwyer said the floor plan finally came together about 45 days before the show—the ensuing weeks involved a flurry of communication with contractors and "constant thinking about where to assign people and consolidating floor plans."
Although a few companies that exhibited in 2008 didn't return this year, the most evident sign of the times was scaled-back hotel bookings. According to Dwyer, some organizations associated with the show had initially taken out blocks of 25 rooms; by the time Saturday rolled around, they may have decided to book only 12.
Companies also economized by manning their display areas with fewer employees than usual. "People decided they didn't need 10 personnel in a 10- by 20-foot booth," Dwyer said. She added that cutting back on staff can give employees a better experience at—and perception of—the event. If there are too many staffers working a booth, "they're not busy, and so it doesn't seem like it was a good show," she said.
