By Barry Siskind

I recently had the opportunity of moderating a panel of experts at the Eastern Canada chapter of the Trade Show Exhibitors Association.  The panel members covered four areas of the exhibition industry; a show manager, a display builder, a shipper and a show contractor. Each spoke on how to ride out the current economic uncertainly from their perspective.

We started by asking the audience for a show of hands on how many would be cutting back on their exhibit expense, how many would be maintaining the same level as last year and how many would be increasing their budget. The percentages were split evenly at one third for each question. It is both astonishing and encouraging to hear that two thirds of the participants plan to either keep their budgets at the same level or increase it.