All hands were on deck over at the Orange County Convention Center the last several weeks as we prepared for one of the biggest events of the year, NPE2018: The Plastics Show. Hosted in both buildings with an estimated 65,000 attendees and over 2,000 exhibiting companies, NPE2018: The Plastics Show is five days of networking, educating, buying and selling.
Convention center employees from all divisions were busy working to ensure the success of the show. Teamwork and pre-planning is essential in prepping the country’s second-largest convention center and preparations for NPE2018: The Plastics Show were no different. Here’s an inside scoop at how some key divisions got ready for this massive event:
Exhibitor Services
The exhibitor services team have been working with NPE2018 exhibitors since March 2017, ensuring a smooth ordering process during move-in, show days and move-out. More than 2,100 orders were placed by exhibitors leading up to the event. Orders included a range of services like electric, water, drainage, lighting, compressed air, gas and aerial rigging. On-site services at the exhibitor desk provided further assistance throughout the entire show.
Rigging
Securing signage, displays, lighting and more, the rigging team was at its busiest during the show’s move-in. With over 70 riggers on-site daily, this team worked above the show floor using 700 motors to raise heavy display objects to fulfill exhibitor and show organizer requests.
On an average-sized event at the OCCC, the amount of par cans (lighting instruments) rigging installed ranges from 100 to 150 par cans. NPE2018: The Plastics Show utilized 1,200 par cans, making it one of the largest shows in terms of lighting here at the OCCC.
Event Set-Up
The event set-up team is in charge of all meeting room sets for the education sessions throughout the event. Over 160 room set orders were fulfilled and more than 850 room-refresh orders were placed.
Centerplate
Our food service provider was busy at work preparing all the food and beverages for the entire show. Over 90 servers were scheduled daily to service this event.
The Centerplate banquet team managed 2,012 banquet event orders in just five days at the OCCC. For comparison, a standard hotel receives about 1,000 banquet event orders annually.
SmartCity
Our service partner provided all internet and telephone connections throughout the show. They also assisted with live streaming of the opening session to all projection screens in the North/South Building and various locations in the West. The live stream included both audio and video.
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