WMCCAI Conference and Expo: From an Exhibitor’s Point of View
Last year was the first year that KPA exhibited at this particular expo and boy was it an experience! Here’s a little background: Over 190 companies in the community association industry exhibit their company’s goods and services. For an exhibitor it is a 2 day commitment. The Friday before the event is move-in day where cars line up in the loading dock areas to drop off all the necessary items for your booth. Then it’s a quick cart ride to your booth thanks to helpful dock workers who load and unload all your boxes. Something that was important for me when designing our pop-up booth display was that it had to be bright and it had to be eye-catching. But where do you start? I started with a theme. It could be a color theme, it could be WMCCAI assigned theme, or it could even be a sports theme. KPA does a drawing at their booth where the winner gets 2 Diamond Club tickets to a Washington Nationals game, so I thought a baseball theme would be fitting. And from there the options were endless: peanuts, Cracker Jacks, Baby Ruths, a large pop-up display of a baseball diamond with KPA’s logo front and center. Ok so now we are setup and ready to exhibit to the over 2,000 attendees that will be flowing in on Saturday.
Saturday morning comes and I’m bright-eyed and bushy-tailed (as my Mema used to say) and I’m off to the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C. Parking was easy and check-in was a breeze. All four of us KPA representatives are standing in our booth excited for what the day will unfold. At start time the attendees begin to fill the large exhibit hall all with a different agenda. Maybe some attendees are there for the educational seminars or maybe some are current Board members searching for a new property management company, or maybe you serve on the Board Landscaping Committee and you are in search of a landscaping contractor. As an exhibiting management company our focus is on providing information about our company to any that come by our booth. It is nice to have a comfortable setting where you can simply have a dialog with a person about KPA Management and the services we can provide. Questions? No problem. That’s why we are exhibiting to be able to answer those questions.
At the end of a long day I feel inspired (and tired because I was in heels for 7 hours) and hopeful for new business and new clients to help. If you are in the community association industry this is where you need to be, at the largest Conference & Expo in the Washington metro area for this industry. This year’s Conference and Expo will be at the same location on March 12th. KPA Management will be there at our same booth as last year, booth 630. If you are attending be sure to come by and grab a bag of Cracker Jacks and check out our large baseball display. I’ll be there, will you?
Blog Author: Tara Alrutz
