Field Template started attending conventions in 1988. Our yearly jaunts typically include: LDI, USITT, and SETC.
We’ve also attended the occasional BMLC, PLASA, InfoComm, and Super Saturday. (These are linked on the ”List of Theatrical Conventions” in the left-hand menu.)
If you’ve not attended one of these conventions, there can be many questions as to what to expect, and how to prepare. Here are some general and specific thoughts on how to get the most from your convention experience:
Before you Go:
Make the decision that you’re going to the convention, and start making plans, months in advance. If you make the decision to attend at the last minute, each aspect of the event will be much more expensive; registration, transportation, or housing.
Hotel & Transportation:
Even before the registration, define and confirm the hotel and the transportion. Many of the hotels get booked months before the convention. Especially the more economically-priced ones. Consider when you want to arrive and when you want to register.
Pre-Registration?
If you don’t care about wasting time the first morning you’re on site, then don’t be concerned. Just stand in line and have a good time. If you have other things to do, instead of stand in line, fill out the advance forms and pay on line. That way, all you have to do is pick up your badge. For that matter, if the morning plans to be an active one, consider arriving at registration to pick up your badge before they close the night before your first full day on site.
Registration Fee:
Most of these conventions have two basic registration packages. They’re more successful if you pay for a full convention registration fee, which is often no small amount of change. If you intend to attend several workshops, or seminars, or sessions that are not open to the general public, then yes, pay the portion (or all) of the fee in order to properly register.
If, on the other hand, you intend solely to walk the show floor, look at products, talk to booth folk, and attend the social functions (which are usually free to all participants,) then ONLY register and pay the show floor fee. Which is usually a LOT less. And often there’s a discount for advance registration.
For that matter, many booth registrants receive complementary show floor passes to distribute at their own discretion. Check the online groundplan or vendor list posted on the convention website. If you know anyone with a booth attending the convention, contact them directly. Sometimes those passes end up not being used and can be passed on to you.
Networking & Job Search:
While sharing knowledge and celebrating our craft are two objectives served by any of these conventions, the primary opportunity provided by any theatrical convention is networking. When a cluster of folks in our little industry get together, there are always a bunch of folks who are employed, another bunch who are looking for employees, and the final bunch who are looking for work.
While you may attend this convention, and not currently be seeking employment, the contacts made by networking at any convention can provide future dividends and job advancement throughout your theatrical career.
Another way to say it; though you may not be looking for a job now, go to one of these conventions equipped to make sure that folks know how to get in touch with you once it’s over. And if you are looking for a job, then recognize this situation for the potentially critical opportunity that it is.
If job-seeking is not your objective, there are numerous other tasks that may be the reason for your attendance. Making equipment comparison and buying decisions, meetings with clients, all of these are potential activities. While a typical three-day convention may seem forever, the time is so compressed that it’s imperative to define what activities you want to attend, where you want to schmooz, and where you need to stop in on the show floor.
Finally, regardless of your reason for attending a convention, these events are a buyer’s market. The potential Employer/Producer/Client doesn’t care. There are many well-equipped folks that can accomplish the design/job/sale that you’re attempting to achieve. Don’t let yourself get in the way of your own success.
Preparation:
Resume: Get your resume(s) together. Check that all your contact information and all of the reference contact information is still accurate. Contact the references and let them know you’re going to be passing their name around, and that they might get some calls.
Portfolio: Get your portfolio together. Review it. Update it. Rehearse it. In front of friends. A couple of times.
Business Cards: Get business card made. Period. Either use an Avery form and have them printed out, or VistaPrint.com (http://www.vistaprint.com), or Overnightprints.com (htt://www.overnightprints.com) Or go to a stationary store and order them in advance.
Don’t get cards that are black on both sides. They may look very ”professional” but if there is no place to write anything, no one will be able to write notes anywhere on them. Which can then translate to any number of people looking at your card in a couple of weeks, wondering who the hell who you are, just before they throw your card away.
Don’t get slippery plastic business cards that resist pen or pencil marks. Same as above.
Don’t get cards that are smaller than a regular business-sized card. They will get lost in a stack of cards, and then your card will not be found as the stack is being sorted and you will miss that opportunity. It may look cute, but for my two cents it also comes off as a sign of low self-esteem.
Don’t use fonts on your business card that are so teeney that they can’t be read by older eyes.
Don’t use fonts that are so cursive/blocky/edgy/sketchy that the text is unreadable. That is counter-productive.
On-Site Arrival
Check-in to the hotel. If you’re sharing a room, make sure they have your name on the register. If contacts only have the name of the hotel, they need your name in order to find you.
Go to Registration and get your badge (if you so choose). That way you also get the show directory and you can double-check the sessions you want to attend, make sure the people giving the sessions haven’t changed, and check the groundplan for the show floor to define which booths you need to visit.
Start asking about the parties. Every night of the convention, at least two or three parties take place. While some are very exclusive, others are great mixers. Regardless, every one of them is an opportunity for you to meet new contacts.
Day of Show
Before you leave your room, make sure you have everything you need so you don’t have to return until the end of the day or when you choose. Don’t let something that you’ve forgotten interrupt the precious convention time. Sometimes it can take hours to leave the convention proceedings and make it back to your room.
Before you leave your room, look in the mirror. Ask yourself, ”would I like to meet this person, talk to them, hire them?” Are you presenting yourself in such a way that others will hire, contract or buy from you?
If you’re presenting yourself as a person wishing to do business, don’t dress like you’re going camping. Or clubbing. Don’t let your appearance be random. Design your costume. Make sure that you are presenting yourself in the way that you choose. First impressions are important.
Make sure you have copies of your business card, your resume, your portfolio, your cut sheets, your samples. Make sure you’ve packed the equipment you need to in order do your business of choice for the day.
Make sure you know which pocket you’ve placed each piece of your equipment so that you don’t search your pockets in front of the potential employer, client, vendor, or contact.
On the Show Floor
Once you get on the show floor, keep the plan and agenda in your head. There is so much stimuli and distractions, it can quickly seem impossible to achieve any of your original goals. Keep your focus. Drink fluids. Take breaks.
If you are not carrying a bag for samples or literature, find one as soon as you can. If you don’t want to return home with an additional 20 pounds of weight, have the sales folk scan your badge, rather than picking up every piece of paper that you see.
As you meet new people cold, do not be shy. Smile. Appear excited. Seek out those who are on your list. Ask questions. Be positive. Present yourself in the best possible light.
Write the context of the conversation on the back of every business card that you receive. What followup task do you need to remember to do with this person? Run through your stack periodically during the day and make sure you have notes reminding you who each card belongs to.
The parties! Remember? Get the invites, talk to the people that need talking to, just make sure you get into them.
Convention No-no’s
