GES & EG Have Now Consolidated!

http://exhibitorsdaily.com/index.php/news/75-0907/1443-ges-and-eg-to-con...

This public merger could have a profound impact on virtually all trade show exhibit, event production and related supplier companies in the near future.

In recent years, GES has been coming under intense industry scrutiny for bulk packaging services at discounted rates (highly discounted at times) to select exhibitors as an incentive for them to purchase or rent ALL of their exhibit/event components direct from GES along with ALL related services (transportation, I&D, AV, etc). This has been a very hot topic EDPA as of late...

Translation: Widgets-R-Us exhibits in "ABC" show and are looking for a new booth or rental, GES has been known to esentially throw-in; Drayage, Transportation, Carpet, and other show services on larger booth/event projects to give the clients an incentive (extreme incentives at times, or sometimes considered as "bribery") to purchase or rent their booth or event project through GES and not through an Exhibit House or outside Event Company.

This not only affects the exhibit houses and event companies, it also affects the I&D Companies, Transportation Suppliers, and others who are regular suppliers to the exhibit/event companies. I know a prominent account that was lost for NAMM this past year to GES...they packaged the drayage and freight on an extremely large booth to a point that it was less than half the cost than what the exhibitor would have paid direct to the show or transportation company if they WOULDN'T have went with GES.

Essentially, they were put in a position that they would have had to pay approximatley $100k more by doing business with any other company other than GES. I suppose that defines "unfair competition" if there ever was one. In the end, it was a huge loss to the exhibit house, transportation companies, I&D vendors, AV company, and everyone else that was usually involved with this specific account. The exhibit company that lost the account (along with any other competing exhibit house) had no physical way of getting close with a competitive rate outside of throwing in a huge chunk of their own money to retain (or aquire) the account, which goes against the main focus of business...trying to earn a profit.

All of the other exhibitors have to pay the normal, published rates but if you buy a booth from GES...you get to forego those costs? After all, they apparently don't need the drayage and transportation revenue from some of these select larger accounts because everyone else is paying through the nose for their services. They then get to pump up the sales of their struggling exhibit production division, pick-up more I&D, AV, and other services which adds to the deep pockets of GES.

Now, with GES and EG publicly consolidating, this becomes a much, much larger "fair competition" issue with more resources for them to lure more accounts.

What do you think?