2006 MAPLD International Conference
Ronald Reagan
Building and International Trade Center
Washington, D.C.
September 26-28, 2006
Dear Colleagues,
I put together this FAQ to assist you in your upcoming MAPLD 2006 exhibit. Some of you are new to MAPLD and this will also help you exhibit effectively at our conference. For exhibitors that have been at MAPLD in prior years, note that this is our third year in our new facility. Some items here are TBD and I'll be filling them in the near term.
If you wish to exhibit at MAPLD, please fill out the simple exhibit reservation form.
Cheers,
-- rk
(updated August 24, 2006)
If you have any additional questions or need anything, please do not hesitate to ask. We are all here to help make your exhibit as effective as possible. This list will be updated as new questions and suggestions come up.
See you in September!
-- rk
* Do I Need To Register At Full Price?
Yes. Exhibitors, presenters, attendees must all register at the regular price. In fact, I as Conference Chairman also pay the same full price. Seminars, the day prior to the conference, are separate..
Vendor registration: http://www.infonetic.com/tis/mapld/VendRegistration.aspx?currentPage=Vendor_Registration
- Double-sized exhibits receive four Conference registrations in their package.
- Large exhibits receive two Conference registrations included in their package.
- Small exhibits receive one Conference registration.
Everyone must register. Our registration form is setup to make this convenient, you can register all people from your organization on one form and receive a single invoice.
* Can I Update My Listing on the Industrial Exhibits Page?
- Yes, please feel free to update any contact information, www addresses, etc.
- Each organization can list one person for contact (name, phone, e-mail) and a single www address. We like our attendees to have good access to your organization, preferably someone they met at the conference.
- Please do not send me a lot of updates a day or two before the conference.
* What Are The Shipping Instructions?
Shipping Instructions for the 2006 MAPLD International Conference
If you wish to ship material to MAPLD you must follow the instructions below exactly. It's as easy as 1,2,3, .... ;-)
- Your exhibit must arrive no later then September 20, 2006.
- Carefully mark all of your items with your organization name. For those of you who use shipping companies, it's often confusing as to what goes where, as your organization's name is not plainly visible. It would be helpful if you would clearly mark your items with your MAPLD booth number.
- Please fill out the on-line form with information about your shipment. I will send you the url for the form over the summer. If you can not find the url, then just send me an e-mail and I'll send it to you again (putting the url on this page will result in false submissions from search engine crawlers).
- Address the shipment to:
MAPLD c/o Pat Burns
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Receiving, Building 16W
Greenbelt, MD 20771
- After the conference, please SECURELY affix pre-paid shipping documents to each item and hand copies to personnel at the registration desk with a list of all of your items. The material will be returned to NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and then shipped out from there. You can ship either back to your plant or on to another show and all major carriers are welcome. Now, if you don't follow these instructions, then your items will be delayed as we'll have to sort through things and figure them out.
- There will be NO handling charges for your exhibit. However, you are responsible for packing your own exhibits well and for paying for shipping after the conference.
- DO NOT SHIP DIRECTLY TO THE RONALD REAGAN BUILDING. The folks at the Reagan Building are very accommodating for MAPLD and they do not wish to have individual shipments there for a variety of reasons. Our (NASA and MAPLD) agreement with them is that our exhibitors will ship to NASA, we will put all of the exhibits on a truck and do what we need to do, and deliver all of the exhibits at a single time to the conference center. This keeps overhead and confusion to a minimum. One organization decided not to listen and now that's my problem. Failure to follow this rule will result in booth placement being altered. :-)
- DO NOT HAND CARRY A BOOTH THROUGH THE FRONT DOOR. As in the item above, this goes against our agreement for how MAPLD will be conducted at the Reagan Building. And you stand a very good chance of simply not getting into the conference center. And you stand an even better chance, if you do make it into the building, of having your booth placement suitably altered. <growl>
- Exhibit setup opens Monday afternoon, September 25 at 4 p.m. and goes through the morning of Tuesday, September 26. Thanks go to our good colleagues at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center for working with us on this.
- Exhibit teardown is the afternoon of Thursday, September 28.
- Your exhibits will be shipped back to NASA on Friday September 29, 2006, and will be unloaded and shipped out starting on that Friday and continuing through Monday, October 2nd, 2006.
* Where are the Exhibits Located?
The Exhibits are located in the Atrium Hall. It is a very nice facility, carpeted, with plenty of room. It's also where most of the breaks will be served, with registration in the pre-function area.
You have been assigned a booth number when you made your reservation. At the facility, a sign will be fixed to your display area to properly identify it. A floor plan will also be posted; this will be done a week or so before the conference.
- In general the Exhibits are open throughout the conference, starting lunchtime on Tuesday the 26th and ending on lunchtime on Thursday the 28th.
- When the lights in the Atrium Hall are dimmed, the exhibits are closed and you should move to the Amphitheater. We have a few periods of time when all conference participants get together such as for the opening remarks, keynote address, and other major invited talks.
* What About Floor Protection?
- Floor protection will be provided for you as all areas are carpeted. This eliminates the concerns we had in 2003 where some exhibitors were on hard wood floors (which I had to sign my life away for).
* Can I Attach Displays To The Wall?
No. NO. NO!
* What About Electrical Loads?
- MAPLD provides (free for the large exhibits, $100 for small exhibits) a standard electrical service of 15 amps. This will handle the lights on a standard backdrop and a computer and display. If you have unique and/or high electrical requirements, please let us know in advance to enable the electricians to run the appropriate cables; you will be invoiced at our cost. Yes, silly to pay for electricity at an electrical engineering conference, it's a union thing.
- For exhibits with electricity, MAPLD will provide approved power strips with surge protectors built in and have them properly affixed to the floor.
* Can I Use Tape For My Exhibit?
- No. If you need tape for any purpose on the floor, please let us (Rich Katz or Ana Wilson) know as soon as possible.
* What Do I Get With My Exhibit?
- 1 6' table, 30" wide, 30" high (2 tables for a double)
- Linens for table - the linens will be black for 2006.
- Conference Registration:
- Four (Double Exhibit)
- Two (Large Exhibit)
- One (Small Exhibit)
- Electric Service
- Double: 30A
- Large: 15A
- Small: None (available for $100, our cost)
- Chairs
- Four (Double Exhibit)
- Two (Large Exhibit)
- One (Small Exhibit)
- Floor protection
- Local Exhibit Handling
- Wireless internet connection for low bandwidth use.
* What Other Services Are Available?
The Reagan Building has lots of facilities, all of them of excellent quality. The packages that I have put together will handle most exhibitors' needs. However, each exhibitor has their own requirements and interests and we will work with you to customize your MAPLD exhibit. We can offer you a wide range of services (basically at cost and keeping the single point of contact interface with MAPLD). These services include those listed below. If you want or need anything else, please let me know and I'll look into it for you and add it to this list.
Do not call the Reagan Building to arrange for services at MAPLD. We are working a single point of contact to keep the overhead of our event low, which keeps all of our costs down and ensures a smooth and efficient working relationship with a minimum of confusion.
- Internet service, high bandwidth
- Telephone service
- Private meeting rooms
- A/V equipment
- Computer equipment.
- Extra or special furniture
- Additional floor space
* How Do I Make My Exhibit More Effective?
Each exhibit and each product is unique. And our MAPLD target audience is unique.
In general, the MAPLD attendee will be either a practicing engineer or a university researcher. As such, they want meat and not "marketing glitz." If you approach your MAPLD exhibit as a typical trade show to WOW (I'd make that blink if I could :-) managers and impress them with fancy marketeering, you will probably not be as successful as you could be.
Instead, I would recommend that you work to educate the engineers about your products, how they work -- a look under the hood, we're engineers! -- and how they will benefit them as a user. Many successful exhibitors bring factory engineers to support this interchange and have detailed technical discussions.
Another approach that is successful for MAPLD exhibitors is to present technical papers in the conference area. Note that product descriptions will not be permitted as a presentation as this is a technical conference and not a trade show. We have found that the successful technical presentations will attract interest and follow-ups at your booth. Again, sitting in your booth serving marketing glitz will not enable you to benefit the most from the MAPLD attendees. Topics for good MAPLD papers include applications making use of your products, a look under the hood of the product by factory engineers giving MAPLD attendees greater insight into the product and how to apply it intelligently, lessons learned and various war stories, and test campaigns showing the reliability of your product.
This is a new paragraph so feel free to contact me about this issue, as we seek to help each exhibitor have an effective exhibit and a successful event.
Many of our exhibitors travel in groups. Note that Washington, D.C., often has a lot of government and other events with large numbers of people in attendance. As a result, getting all people from one organization into the same hotel with late reservations may be difficult. It is recommended that you make your lodging reservations early. MAPLD provides a list of hotels that we've compiled over the past few years, both from our searches of the local area and from information that our attendees have sent in. There is no official conference hotel and each individual or organization can choose what suits them best.
A number of exhibiting organizations have asked to become MAPLD sponsors and appropriate mechanisms are now being established to permit non-US Government sponsors. Neither MAPLD or any of its staff will solicit sponsorships. If your organization wishes to become a sponsor, then you must volunteer and initiate the process. Sponsorships will be distinct and separate from an exhibit and must be initiated by an e-mail from your organization. Please e-mail me if you have any questions.
Industrial and Government Exhibit Reservation Form
Pictures from the 2005 MAPLD International Conference
2006 MAPLD International Conference Home Page
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Last Revised:
February 03, 2010
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