the Cost of Trade Shows

We paid $400 for a booth for 5 hours at a trade show. This was supposed to include 2 tables and 4 chairs.

We bought space at a local trade show. We were guaranteed that a minimum number of people would show up or a portion of our money would be refunded. We were told we'd have 2 tables and 4 chairs available to us. When we showed up there were no tables left. We had a heck of a time finding someone in charge to ask about how to get a table. When we finally did we were told that the tables were on a first come, first serve basis. Luckily another person heard this and had an extra table they gave us. We also found some people who had extra chairs. We still had 1/2 the table space we were promised. Then, about 1/4 of the people who were promised to show up showed up. We hardly did any business at all. When we tried to collect on our guarantee we were told that it didn't apply if it was storming out. What a ridiculous thing to say. We never did collect on it.

When we got home we searched the internet and found a lot of other horror stories like this. This was a bad trade show and if we'd done a little bit of research we would have known this. Do your research!