Somehow over the past few years, between having kids and changing careers, I had forgotten about some of the absurdities of the tradeshow industry, including the exorbitant charges and strange fees associated with everything.  At my last telecom conference in Atlanta a few years ago, the cost to rent a fold-up chair was $139 (although I could purchase the same one at Costco for 14 bucks); the carpeting – straight from the eighties – was $250 (I didn’t even inquire on the cost of underlay.)  And let’s not forget drayage… basically, big burly men (cranky of course) getting your boxes from the outside of the site to your booth space inside the site (sometimes a whole 200 feet away), at a cost equivalent to my mortgage payment.  Tradeshow mania.

It all came racing back to me when we signed up Every Little Bit to participate in EP!C this year.  Billed as western Canada’s largest consumer sustainable living expo, it was a logical event for us to debut at.  A tremendously successful weekend, but its still necessary to give the Clint Eastwood précis of the event.

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