PRN Funding had the opportunity to exhibit at the National Private Duty Association’s Annual Leadership Conference at Planet Hollywood Casino in Las Vegas last week. Although we were pleased with both the quantity and the quality of the attendees, we left the home care trade show disappointed for a number of reasons. Sadly, the majority of the reasons why we were disappointed with the show had to do with NPDA’s poor customer service:

• PRN Funding was assigned to Booth #20 months prior to the show, however, a couple of weeks before shipping out, we were told that we were going to be in a different booth. NPDA did address this, however, the miscommunication created a bit of panic on our end, as we had already sent out marketing details about our booth number prior to the change.
• Booth set-up times and exhibit hall open and close times also changed a number of times prior to the actual show.
• The show decorator’s (LV Expo) package arrived late, and they initially missed our scheduled pick-up time.
• When we did our pre-conference email blast to the NPDA show attendee’s, one of the attendees emailed us back and said that they were displeased that we were marketing to them because they never gave permission to receive emails from exhibitors. (NOTE: PRN Funding received the permission-based attendee list directly from NPDA.)
• When PRN Funding’s crew arrived to set up the booth, the dimensions of the booth space were incorrect.
• There were a couple of times when the presenters went over their alloted time to speak, which cut into exhibit hall time.
• Once at the show, the exhibit hall open/close times changed again within a couple of hours notice in order for the show decorator to set up for cocktail hour.
• During cocktail hour, there were dueling pianos in the exhibit hall, which was a nice Vegas touch, however, it made it nearly impossible for exhibitors and attendees to interect on the floor because it was so loud.

On the plus side, the attendees were bright, professional and engaged. They approached PRN Funding’s booth, wanting to learn more about our home care factoring services, and we had a number of enthusiastic conversations.

Q: Did you attend/exhibit at the 2011 NPDA Annual Leadership Conference? If so, what were your thoughts? We’re interested to see attendees viewpoints of the show.