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How to Play By The Rules and Win – Lessons for Exhibitors and Show Organizers on Beating Internet “Exclusivity”
Ian Framson
Co-founder and CEO of Trade Show Internet.
June 21, 2011
Let me tell you a troubling story about one of my exhibitor clients and how they were taken advantage of at a recent trade show. Summer Vyne is the director of education for CCS Presentation Systems, a learning services company that provides classroom technology to schools. CCS was an exhibitor at the 2011 Florida Educational Technology Conference (FETC). CCS set up a smart board in its booth and also had two monitors where teachers could register electronically to receive a generous grant. Like many exhibitors, CCS needed Internet access at its booth to effectively display its technology.
CCS is a budget-conscious and value-conscious exhibitor. As such, Summer investigated several suppliers for her Internet connectivity needs. The Orange County Convention Center (OCCC) offered FETC exhibitors Internet access through their 3rd party in-house contractor. Summer ultimately chose our company, Trade Show Internet (TSI), and paid 25% of the OCCC’s cost to rent our 3G Internet Kit for her booth.
Summer and her three computers were zooming along the information superhighway until a representative from the OCCC’s in-house contractor showed up at her booth and demanded she shut down her unauthorized Internet equipment. The only options provided were to use the in-house contractor’s service or make do without Internet. Seeking to avoid a confrontation in front of prospective customers, CCS switched over to the in-house contractor’s service.
After the show had ended, Summer commented that “our connection actually worked better when we were connected with TSI’s equipment” and explained that TSI’s “service was a lot faster and did not drop off constantly. Too bad we could not have used it longer.”
At this juncture, it would be easy for me to extol the virtues of our service and make all sorts of feature/benefit comparisons, but I’ll save that for another blog post. Instead, I want to share with you some important lessons we learned from this experience and how you can defend your consumer rights (if you should find yourself in the same difficult situation).
As a result of Summer’s unfortunate experience, we promptly issued her a refund. After speaking with the show organizer, the in-house contractor, OCCC leadership and the FCC, we began an extensive research effort into telecommunications law.
We hired Tobin Law Group, a well-respected telecommunications law firm in CA, to independently verify our research. As it turns out, there are four Federal laws which protect the rights of exhibitors and show organizers to operate their own Internet devices at their events. We’ve published this information in our Consumer Bill of Rights.
In fact, the FCC prohibits building owners (specifically naming hotel, conference, and convention centers) from signing exclusive contracts with common carriers (a type of telecommunications provider). The rationale behind these FCC rules is fairly obvious – competition in the marketplace helps keep prices low, stimulates innovation, and creates more choices for consumers.
However, convention centers and their in-house Internet service providers (with whom they split Internet revenues) don’t want you to know their business strategy runs afoul of Federal laws. Why you ask? Because in order to sustain a $1,000-plus price point they need you to be naïve of telecom laws and accept the myth of Internet exclusivity.
Life experience has taught me that knowledge is power. My goal in sharing this story is to shed light on an unethical business practice that is all too common in our industry. Hopefully, we can turn CCS’s experience into a positive one by creating an open and well-informed dialogue in the industry. Like Summer, exhibitors and show managers stand to benefit immensely from a competitive market for products and services.
I’ll leave you with this quote from Summer. “We had paid for a service that was shut down and then forced to use (the in-house contractor). What happened needs to be shared if it is not legal. Consumers should have choices. We thank you for being a company who absolutely cares about our partnership. We hope to clear this up and be able to use your service next year.”
Have you had a similar experience you’d like to share? Can you offer a unique perspective on this issue? I look forward to your feedback.
Ian Framson (not verified) said, on June 29, 2011 - 5:43pm
Dear Multi-show Organizer,
Thank you for your response. You bring up some very good points.
TSI is constantly exploring the latest technologies, including routers that broadcast on 5.0 GHz, to ensure we are able to offer our clients innovative solutions that meet their needs. Our routers provide both wired and WiFi connection options for our clients. During our consultative selling process we share with each client best practices surrounding the wired vs. WiFi choice. It is up to each client to determine the best LAN implementation for their needs.
Please feel free to contact me if you have specific questions for your upcoming events. I'm happy to serve as a technical resource to you regardless of who you choose as your ISP.
Ian Framson
ian@tradeshowinternet.com
Multi-show Organizer (not verified) said, on June 23, 2011 - 7:06am
Ian,
Being an event organizer who has faced the mobile bandwidth and wifi issues for some time, I find your write-up to be a bit misleading.
Let me elaborate from a different perspective.
The 802.11 (2.4ghz) frequency is nice, we all have it in our homes and at the office...wonderful technology. Problem is, it is very unstable, and can only handle a limited number of users at one time. If it gets overloaded, it means no one can connect. As you can imagine, the rising #'s of Mifi's and Smartphones with HotSpots enabled on the showfloor, causes a problem and in theory companies like TSI are only adding to the problem.
If knowledge is power as you say, is TSI informing their customers that regardless of what the venue does, the service TSI is offering is not stable and runs the risk of not working at all? It is quite possible the venue did not shut anyone down (unless they said they did to help the customers who paid them for service). To explain, if there are too many users competing for the 802.11 (2.4ghz) signal, their internet will simply not be able to communicate with the routers, does not mean anyone shut it off necessarily. You may not realize it, but your services could be every bit as much of the problem. Can you blame the venues for trying to ensure their customers have the service they sold to them?
Is there a solution? You bet....I suspect venues will soon drop prices on the 802.11 2.4 GHZ frequency and inform the customer that they cannot guarantee up-time as it is not stable and there are variables they cannot control...then charge a premium for the 802.11 (5ghz) frequency that will not have these same conflict issues. If you were selling 5ghz 802.11 wifi, you would not have the conflict issue either...and then you could make gripes about the venue shutting people down....because you would no longer be adding to the problem.
This does not even touch on the mobile (3G) bandwidth limitations on some carriers (at high volume events) where it is possible...even if they can connect on 802.11 (2.4ghz) that there is not mobile bandwidth to support it. Carriers and venues are working feverishly to correct the problem, but many customers are not aware of it, so spreading the word is important.
If we are going to discuss the challenges openly...let's do that...but let's put everything on the table...because after all...knowledge is power and we need to spread the word.
Where is your company on introducing or expanding the 5Ghz offering? Can you offer us some insights as well?
My advice is let's be cautious about pointing fingers before we have all the information. I have found while venues want to protect their revenues (as are you, which is understandable) they seem very eager to get resolutions to a problem they cannot solve on their own. They seem eager to work collectively to resolve issues...but to do so...we all need to be open and honest and discuss the issues at hand from every angle.
crw (not verified) said, on June 22, 2011 - 9:29am
I use to work in AV, and this kind of thing happens all the time with audiovisual equipment at trade shows and conferences. Did your law firm turn up anything on exclusivity in other aspects outside of the Internet?
I also know that IAEE teamed up with ECSA and was going after convention centers that were forcing people to use any kind of in-house service. Unfortunately, it only applied to exclusivity, and not to convention centers that present "barriers to entry." "Barriers to entry" can be just as bad because sometimes they force people to use the in-house services even if those services are not techncially exclusive.
I no longer work in AV but these things still irk the heck out of me. Good luck spreading the word!
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