From: sieler@allegro.com (Stan Sieler)
Subject: Re: INTEREX Trade Show - One Vendors Impression
Date: Tue, 01 Sep 1992 00:33:40 GMT
Organization: Allegro Consultants, Inc., Redwood City, CA

In article <1239@ki.com> corrigan@ki.com (Jim Corrigan) writes:
>
>INTEREX Trade Show, New Orleans, LA
>August 25, 1992 10:45 a.m. EDT 
>
>For Immediate Release
...
>Louisiana coast, exhibitors at what has been billed by show promoters as one of
>the computer industry's largest and best attended trade shows are being forced
...
>According to Jay Wanek, Promotions Director for ki Research, a Columbia,
>Maryland-based open networking communications software vendor, attendees began
>fleeing their hotels and catching planes for safer ground as early as yesterday
>afternoon, as reports of hurricane Andrew's possible landfalls started to
>include this popular Louisiana city.
>
>Vendors and exhibitors however, who paid thousands of dollars for floor space
>at the New Orleans Convention Center have not been so lucky. According to
>Wanek, show officials have been warning that if any of them leave, their booths
>will be"torn down."  Exhibitors' packing materials, stored by show workers,
>have not been released to their rightful owners and vendor's requests for
>information have been continually ignored.  An information conference for
>exhibitors has been scheduled for noon today.
>
...

I was a little surprised to see the "press release" from "ki Research" [sic]
about the Interex convention and Hurricane Andrew.  My company has participated
as a vendor (and individually as speakers) at Interex conferences since 1983.
We have focused primarily on the HP3000, and were part of the Software
Research Northwest booth at this conference.

At this conference, all vendors were in the Convention Center, as were
all of the talks for the HP3000 users.  HP9000 users (i.e.: InterWorks)
talks were at a different site (a hotel, I believe).

(I find it difficult to believe that anyone connected with Interex or
InterWorks would describe it as one of the "computer industry's largest and
best attended trade shows".  MacWorld, DECUS, almost *any* IBM show, and 
many others are easily an order of magnitude larger.)

Contrary to the implication raised by the "attendees began
fleeing" phrase, I saw few attendees leave, and few vendors.  (Of course,
I would have missed seeing HP9000 attendees leave, since I was at the
Convention Center).  I personally know of no HP3000 vendors
who left, and only one attendee (an HP manager, who later returned).

My company, and those that I have talked to since, were comfortable with
the handling of the hurricane:

   1) we realized that the Interex (and InterWorks) people were working 
      with the convention center management;

   2) a "hurricane status desk" and a "hurricane location map" were created
      and posted to allow us to keep track of the hurricane, which (to 
      admittedly inexperience eyes) looked like it would miss New Orleans.

   3) The conference was closed a little early (4pm) on Tuesday to allow
      attendees to go back to their hotels.  (Again, I cannot vouch for the
      Interworks portion, but the Interex talks/panels, and the vendor show
      closed at 4pm).  It started one hour later than usual on Wednesday.

   4) The conference hotels were safe to retreat to, as they happened to be
      designated hurricane shelters.  Indeed, our hotel (the Hilton) filled
      up with some local residents (some from the target area 150 miles
      to the west) seeking what they knew to be a safe haven.  

In short, I believe that the Interex staff and the Convention Center staff
worked together well (and safely) in handling Hurricane Andrew.  I'm glad
they didn't simply terminate the entire conference.  Many attendees would 
have been ill-equipped to rush out of the city on short notice.  I think
that adding several thousand people to the lines of eager would-be airplane
passengers might have been unpleasant.  Some attendees (and vendors) had
driven from nearby states.  I shudder to think what would have happened
if any of them, leaving a shutdown conference, had been stranded driving
to the west of New Orleans (where the hurricane came ashore).

I am a little confused by the press release, in the section dealing with
"torn down" and the inability to obtain packing material.  As I read it,
it seems to say: we were threatened that our booths would be torn down.  But,
the next sentence implies that they *wanted* to tear the booth down?!

I hesitated for a couple of days before posting this note, as I believe
that complaints (for such it was) such as the one from "ki Research" 
should be aired first in the appropriate Interex (or InterWorks) forum
and not publicly...net bandwidth is too important.  I finally decided to
post this note just to balance the viewpoint on the conference.

(BTW: I quoted "ki" because I couldn't render it in bold or italics.  In
English, we often use capitals to distinguish company names from the rest
of the text of a sentence, but the "k" is apparently lower case, sigh.)

Stan Sieler
Vice President
Allegro Consultants, Inc.
sieler@allegro.com

Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp