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Trade Show Season 2017 Crating and Shipping

The holiday season should be a time for living in the moment, enjoying family and friends, and taking a small deserved break from the hustle and bustle of work. For many, those who plan and organize their companies presence at trade shows, the real work, unfortunately starts when everybody else is getting into the holiday spirit.

For over a decade I worked at a company that attends the largest expo on earth. The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) which this year will run January 5-8th. The planning and logistics necessary to have a successful trade show in the first few months of the year always takes place in December.

The trade show season every year starts off with a bang, CES and just keeps going from there, with large shows such as MAGIC -Apparel, Furniture and Home Decor - Furniture, Automation Tech - Equipment, Medical Manufacturing - Medical Equipment, Kid Show - Baby and Kid, and The Day Spa Expo - Spa, all taking place in the first few months of the year.

The companies that attend these shows put in a lot of work during the holidays preparing for these shows. Designing new displays and signage that bring focus to new product lines, creating new advertising materials and needing custom crating and proper trade show packaging for their materials.

Gateway Crate and Freight helps a number of companies with the logistics of these events. Providing custom crating and packaging for these materials and providing transportation logistics to and from the shows.

Recently we helped a large Tile Flooring company prepare for their upcoming trade show season by designing and building reusable expo crates for their materials. Crates for their booth walls, signage and tile and slab materials were made with ease of use by show personnel on the trade show floor.

With so many different and unique compositions of items, many different crates had to be designed and built. One thing that needed the utmost protection were their larger tile slabs. We designed an A Frame crate to allow the slabs to travel on edge inside the crate (Picture of Build below) 


Additionally, the base was made to allow the walls to nest on the frame so that the walls would not need to be screwed in (the personal at the show would not need cordless drills etc to get to the display product) but the wall shell could be strapped on by ratchet straps and easily removed, while providing a strong crate interlock casing for the heavy product inside.


We routed hole handles into the crate casing to allow the crate shell to be taken on and off of the base easily. This kind of customization is designed into these crates after evaluating how items are treated during transportation, but also how the materials can be accessed easily while being loaded and unloaded while on the trade show floor.


The two shell casing are easily fitted onto and taken off the base to access the materials on the A Frame. This design also allows for easy wrapping and securing of the materials in the crate. For example slabs on the A Frame, when the walls are detached can be banded or shrink wrapped to the A Frame to ensure the slabs don't shift or come into contact with the crate walls during transportation.


Multiple custom crates designed specifically for trade show materials is a specialty of Gateway Crate and Freight. Providing the crate and packaging you need to ensure your items get to the trade show floor and back without incidence is a top priority.

Gateway Optimum Transportation has also provided our clients with trade show shipping and logistics services and our Trade show experts have years of experience successfully planning and executing trade show shipping for shows around the world.

Call for a free quote for trade show crating and packing or just for expo logistics information. One of our trade show professionals will be happy to assist you with your questions. Toll Free 855-474-4685 or visit our trade show page online at http://www.gatewaycrateandfreight.com/tradeshow.html

Now if you are not attending one of these important early year trade shows in 2017 get back to enjoying the holidays, don't drink too much egg nog and sit back and relax, dont mind us - trade show logistics people - we have a lot going on right now. Happy Holidays.

Gateway Crate and Freight and Gateway Optimum Transportation is a 3PL provider of crating, packing and shipping logistics services located in Tempe, Arizona. Steven Tittle is Owner and founding partner and has over 2 decades of experience in managing trade show logistics. Visit www.gatewaycrateandfreight.com or www.gatewayot.com.







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