Crates, Shipping & Show Services

Let's face it. Getting back to live events, has not all been a walk in the park. There are still some industries that have inexperienced staff and have staff services. A lot of those shortages are on the show floor in the form of show services crews. As a result, the people that are there are either new or sometimes they are struggling to get the job done. So in many cases corners are being cut.

Crates are a necessary part of shipping rental exhibits and island exhibits or equipment. Recently a customer had a very badly damaged crate come back and they blamed us. We offered to have production repair it at cost, just parts and labor, but she didn't want to ship it to our production facility for repair. I suggested she send it directly to a local partner that we have used for crate building. 

Here is the reality. Our crate building partners have been doing this for 30+ years. No one can build a crate that can withstand the abuse that goes on now during show set up and tear down.

I have personally watched what they do on the floor. When the crate is empty, they want to get them out of the aisles as quickly as possible. That means they don't want to wait for forklifts of pallet jacks to move empty crates. Here is what they do.

The use long handled Lever dolly like below. They tip the crates up on end and then drop them onto dollies, like below.  Depending on the length of the crate that can be a long drop and can easily buckle the floor of a well-built crate.

                                         

I have written about the abuse that is happening to crates on the show floor (THIS IS NOT DURING TRANSIT - THAT IS A COMPLETE ADDITIONAL STORY).  You can read about our personal experience here:  Crate Damage by Show Services.

Today, yet another crate on a rental came back with the floor damaged. You can see the floor damage in the picture above. Now, you may be tempted to say, that it MUST be the crate builder's fault. This is a different builder than the customer crate mentioned above. This builder has been in business and building crates for 20 years.

Another recent crate return you see below. They sheared off two of the skids so it is now resting on a cart in our warehouse.

We have NO control over what happens to a crate when it gets shipped, when it is handled by show services, when it is handled by an install crew that we didn't subcontract.  We will stand behind our product as it relates to defects, but we know the quality of these crates.

I will tell you over 80% of crates coming back from shows are coming back damaged. We have trashed three crates this year that came back and were beyond repair. Luckily most of them have been used for years so it was ok.  These kinds of expenses are hard on exhibit houses, and we have NO recourse with the show management crews in filing claims.

Be kind to your exhibit house. They are likely building you great crates, but they are being abused and mishandled on the show floor. If your crate comes back damaged, I suggest taking it up with the Freeman's and the GES's of the world, don't beat up your exhibit house.