According to Tulsa’s 2 Works for You website, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, and several others, are coming to the Tulsa Convention Center:

Sarah Palin is scheduled to come to Tulsa to join Glenn Beck for the “Taking Our Country Back” tour.

The announcement was made Tuesday afternoon at the Tulsa Convention Center.

Palin is scheduled to join Glenn Beck, John Rich and Gretchen Wilson on Saturday, March 13th at Noon at the Tulsa Convention Center.

Tickets start at $45. For more information and updates go to www.takingourcountrybacktour.com

The Tulsa Convention Center is located at

Tulsa Convention Center
100 Civic Center
Tulsa, Oklahoma 74103-3822                                                               

Phone 918 – 894 – 4350
Toll-Free 800 – 678 – 7177
Fax 918 – 894 – 4229

Here is the full Taking Our Country Back announcement, directly from the Tulsa Convention Center website:

John Rich (Big & Rich) and Holden Productions announced the first date of the Taking Our Country Back Tour, Saturday, March 13 at the Tulsa Convention Center, Tulsa, Oklahoma.  The rally and concert will feature conservative talk radio and television host Glenn Beck, country artists John Rich and Gretchen Wilson performing in concert, best-selling author Dick Morris, a tribute to the armed forces and more. Combining full-scale arena concert performances with patriotic speakers and inspirational messages, the Taking Our Country Back Tour is the rallying event Americans have been waiting for.
“So many Americans are feeling disenfranchised by our government,” said John Rich.  “As voters, we entrusted them with our hopes and dreams and the chance to be good stewards of our money; but we’ve been betrayed.  This is a rally for like-minded Americans who feel we need to take our country back.”
Top rated radio and television host Glenn Beck will speak at the rally, presenting his opinions on bloated government, political disregard for the sacredness of the Constitution, and how ordinary citizens – when united for a cause – can force the government to change.
John Rich will appear with his band playing hits from his work with Big & Rich and his solo career. Gretchen Wilson will also appear in concert with her band performing hits such as Redneck Woman and Here For The Party.
All involved believe the Taking Our Country Back Tour is a non-partisan rally for all Americans:  “The Taking Our Country Back Tour is a unifying event for anyone who feels the government is taking this country in directions the Constitution and the Founding Fathers never intended,” said promoter Tony Holden.  “Doesn’t matter if you voted Republican or a Democrat; we gave these elected officials their jobs and they need to know we can take them away,” added Rich.
Also appearing at the rally, Dick Morris, author of the New York Times best sellers Catastrophe and Outrage.  Morris, a former advisor to President Bill Clinton, predicted the demise of Fannie Mae, the subprime mortgage crisis and Wall Street’s near implosion.  During the Taking Our Country Back Tour he will outline how the President and Congress are conspiring to eliminate individual freedom and prosperity of American citizens.
Tickets for the March 13, Tulsa, Oklahoma, Taking Our Country Back Tour event range from $45 to $125 and are on sale now at Tickets.com or by telephone at 1-866-7BOKCTR.   For more information about the Taking Back Our Country Tour, contact Tony Holden at (918) 299-4120, Brad White at (405) 310-3900, or go to www.takingourcountrybacktour.com.

Having a good floor manager is key in making all things work well for your trade show or convention. If someone is well versed in procedures and what can and cannot be done in any given situation you will be way ahead of the game.  I watched as someone recently had no idea how to accomplish a small task like adding chairs to a room, and also watched as an experienced floor manager operate a situation where a wheel chair ramp was needed and it wen smoothly and without any problems. 

The same goes for someone that works well with the facility and if applicable a third party vendor that does things like registration, lead tracking etc.  Having an experienced floor manager can make your trade show work like a well oiled machine or make it a crazy nightmare for everyone.  There are plenty of freelance managers that do nothing but this for any show in their town, and their are those that do that as their sole responsibility for a big show. Getting a great floor manager is key whether your show is 10 exhibitors or 1000.

Tags: Floor Manager, Conventions, Trade Shows, Exhibitors, Freelance

Guest Post by Peter LoCascio

The old saying “Lead, follow, or get out of the way” resounds dramatically at trade show exhibits more than almost any other business environment when it comes to top management getting positively involved in the daily action of booth duty. There is no better way for management to invigorate, motivate and demonstrate their individual commitment and dedication to fellow employees, prospects and customers then by taking an active role in pulling booth duty at a trade show. Whatever the task, top management should meet the challenges of exhibiting by setting the example in the booth and being available to support every business issue that might develop during the course of the entire trade show.

The appointed “A” team on booth duty should include top management who will dramatically and effectively add to the overall horse power of the exhibit presentation to out distance the competition and provide new prospects and existing customers with a greater sense of security and confidence in doing business with your company. A simple hand shake and agreement between your company President and a new prospect might be all that’s needed to close a new piece of business emanating right there from your trade show exhibit.

The trade show exhibit floor should be viewed by top management as a live proving ground where their leadership, knowledge and corporate culture is on display for all to experience, emulate and support especially , prospects, customers and fellow company team members.

There is also no better business environment than a trade show exhibit for top management to be on the ground with fellow employees learning the finer points of presenting, demonstrating and selling products.

www.tradeshowconsultants.com

Tags: Conventions, trade shows, exhibitors, sales, advertising, marketing, customer development, Trade Show Exhibit

As a convention organizer and the one in charge of speakers of an event that is pretty large with more than 350 speakers, it was enlightening to find out how many people are Mac vs. PC.  What I mean by that is the computer of choice for the speakers more in line with the corporate world and Microsoft’s PC community, or are they cutting edge and more of a Mac community. This was the question that came across my mind recently when asking how the audio visual vendors would be helping our speakers ready for the presentation of their sessions.

What is BYOD you might ask?  I am planning on making up some t-shirts for sale to organizers that have this problem.  It is the little wire that goes from a Mac to a PC version of a slide projector or the projector that allows presenters to you their power points.  It is called a "dongle".  I could make a fortune selling these at large events that have both PC presenters, but especially Mac presenters.  Most if not all audio/visual projectors have a hook up for a PC but not for a Mac. 

I myself do a lot of presenting and I make sure that I prepare for all facets.  I put my presentation on a thumb drive, I put it on my desktop, and I also make sure I have brought my own dongle.  I make sure my presentation works both in a PPT and in Keynote, which is the slide show of those that use a Mac.  Are you a mac or a PC?  Did you bring your own dongle?

Tags: Mac vs. PC, technology, Trade Shows, Conventions, Speakers, Audio/Visuals

I want to let everyone know why I have been absent for a while from the blog.  I have been in complete trade show and convention mode for the last 6 weeks and it has been quite an experience.  I talk about a lot of things that are part of our industry, such as travel, meeting venues and trade shows that are occurring but never have I given real life experiences that I have had.  That all can change now as I went through that process last week in Las Vegas at the Las Vegas Convention Center.  We had a three day conference with a two day full on exhibited trade show at that location and I was in the heart of the show and its inner workings.  I have much to discuss as it relates to the real inside of a trade show and convention.  There were some good, bad and ugly stories and I want to share all of those with you.

I had to deal with vendors, exhibitors, speakers, attendees, location managers, and staff and everyone else involved with the show. From the planning to the inner workings, to the post show analysis debriefing I was involved from start to finish.  The good news is I have been invited back to do it all again next year, and for some that might even be bad news.

I want to thank the folks at Conventions.net for giving me the latitude for some real inside research and participation.  I am hoping to pass on some of that knowledge I learned, some funny stories, and perhaps a nightmare or two.  Stay tuned here as I go through the process.  I am afraid I still have one event left and that will be at the Marriott Waikiki in beautiful Hawaii.  It’s not a bad gig but still it is working on a conference and convention.

Tags: trade shows, conventions, Las Vegas Convention Center, LCVA, BlogWorld Expo, BWE09, Hawaii, Rethink Hawaii

Perhaps this is the male perspective and being a male I apologize immediately if this is not for you.  I wonder if it is all about getting the phone number. It seems to me that when I attend events and i walk by a booth and give a wave or a hello to the person behind the table, they immediately begin to reel in the sale.  They want the number. Close the info so we can spam them later.

If this is the way we are getting "leads", perhaps it is time to rethink our law of attraction. I feel like I am more a number when all the person at the show wants is my badge to get my info scanned into their system. I understand.  It is about getting a return on investment, (there is that phrase again) and really we are attending as exhibitors to get leads, but it has to be a little more personal than that.

This is what I have been teaching and preaching about social media. It is not always about the page videw or the email address so you can ge that subscriber to broadcast your message to them. I have so many dummy mail addresses for this that I am sure I have clogged the Internet with traffic to nowhere.  I am not even happy about admitting to that, but when I give an email address and I get 30 emails in 30 days all asking me to buy your stuff or to click your junk I get a little pessimistic.  Its not about the number of people you scan but about the number of people you actually connect with.  I know its tough to tell your boss you "connected well" when they are asking for your list of email addresses or contacts made.  Perhaps now is the time to help me preach this doctrine.  Just subscribe to the blog here and let me know… oh wait, we really don’t send spam messages here.

Tags: Exhibits, Trade Shows, Booths, Sales, Leads

I was at a recent conference in Seattle called "Gnomedex" a technology and conference for geeky technical types.  No I am not considered one of those but I enjoy hanging out with those that make me smarter and this was no exception.  I learned quite a bit of information just sitting and listening to the speakers and talking to people in the hallway.  One of these smarter than I types was Scott Porad.  Scott is the CTO of the popular websites I Can Has Cheezburger?  (the picture here I made at their site) and Failblog.org.  Scott wrote a recent post recapping his own experience at Gnomedex and it was revealing about how we as attendees perceive the value of the face-to-face meetings.  The highlights I would like to talk about are Scott’s perception of meetings:

In my view, there are two reasons to attend an industry conference, regardless of industry:

1. To gain some practical skills or information.  For example, attending a training or sales conference.
2. To develop relationships with industry peers.

And finally he finishes with:

I’ve come to understand in a more personal way the age-old axiom that “it’s not what you know, but who you know”.  At a certain point, business is not a meritocracy–there are lots of smart people with good ideas.  It’s the relationships you have, and the ability to enlist others to support you, that separates the good ideas from the successful ideas.

Most companies don’t encourage their employees to attend industry conferences.  I would encourage you to make an effort to do so, even if you have to pay your own way.  The connections made at events like Gnomedex are worth every penny of the price of admission.

This goes a long way to telling me what some industry professionals are saying when they decide to go to an event and what they are getting out of that event which we need to pay most attention to from a return on investment standpoint.  It is about the relationships made at events.  I have been following Scott for a little while in social networks and reading his blog.  I have not had the connection until we were able to shake hands and actually meet.  This is the biggest return on my investment for being in Seattle and the time and place most of us discount in the long run.  I on the other hand need to garner these relationships and i will continue to attend conferences until they come up with a better way to meet, shake hands, and say hello to a new friend.

Tags: Scott Porad, Conferences, Gnomedex, Seattle, Travel, Conference Costs

My mother always told me not to gossip.  She would cite some reference in Proverbs I think it was and tell me I was not being a good boy when I gossiped about a friend or that spooky neighbor that was like Boo Radley in To Kill A Mockingbird. Many people don’t have my mother to tell them that it is bad to talk behind someone’s back so I guess we need to resort to other methods to find out what is being said.  Not because we are going to send my mother over to scold them for doing it, but because there is great intelligence that can be gathered as a result of our own listening in on other people’s conversations.

What is being said about your convention?  Are you listening?  There are many ways now of finding out what is being said about a particular company or about a speaker, or a session or other information that takes place in your show, but how do we find out?  You can certainly do things like Google alerts, and RSS search feeds and other intelligence gathering methods, but perhaps it is time for your convention or trade show to get professional help.  I mean some of the listening software out there, like Techrigy, Radian 6 or Trakur or other types of software.  There are a number of them, I just happened to know the people behind these and they were off the top of my head.  If you have no idea what the examples are that I gave before the names of these companies, I definitely advise you to seek their help.

Why is it important?  I think you already know the answer to that.  Wouldn’t you like to be a fly on the wall after your event?  Now you can be that and have the intelligence to make your show better than your competition.  I should also add that not only can you see what they are saying about you, but how about what they are saying about your competition also?  That might be good to know as well.  How am I sure that you will get wind of what is being said?  Let’s just see if the people at these companies come by and see what is being said about their listening software shall we?  I promise not to tip them off.  My bet is they at least say hello. We can also see if their competition is listening and if they want to let us know about their monitoring software too.

Photo via eHow

Tags: listening, tracking software, Techrigy, Radian 6, Trakur, Social Media Tracking

Today we are hearing about all of the trade shows and conventions having their troubles with attendance and sizes dwindling and many other doom and gloom type stories.  This is what makes it especially nice to hear about the cool stories and the good news that takes place in our world.  Trade Show Week has now published its list of hottest events and shows in its TSW Fastest 50 Winners.  The announcement was made today listing the top 50 fastest movers in the business.

Shows from the United States and Canada will be recognized during the TSW Fastest 50 event Nov. 13-15 in Houston, which also hosted the inaugural celebration in 2003.

This Fastest 50 event registration opens on August 10, 2009. To register and for more information, go to www.tswfastest50.com.

Conventions.net and we here at Convention Insider would like to offer our most heartfelt congratulations to the winners as they all deserve to be recognized as leaders given the difficulties they have faced in accomplishing this great honor.

Tags: Trade Show Week, TSW Fastest 50, Houston

Now I am going out on a limb here to make the offer just that much better.  If you sign up for the Annual Premium Listing before the deadline on Friday I will feature you and your company here on Convention Insider!  Shhh, don’t tell the boss, he doesn’t have a clue that I am offering this but if you read it here and sign up for the offer, just drop me a line and I will make sure you get included on the blog as an added bonus. Okay here endeth the pitch. Tags: Conventions.net, Online Marketing, Trade Shows, Conventions, Meetings, Events