[Ron Lindeboom]

I will throw a recent company’s foray into NAB as a yardstick.

SpectSoft are good friends of the COW and have been going to NAB for three years now. (The 2008 venue will be their fourth year as an exhibitor.)

I know from talking with them that investing in the show has been a good thing but it has also cost them more than it has returned. (At least until the third year.) But like many businesses, they knew that for a company with a new product, they needed to be there for the same reasons that Apple once felt the need in the early days of Final Cut. They wanted to assure the market that they are real and have a commitment to the product. (In the early stages of a product or a company, that is a compelling reason to be there.)

But the ROI is almost never there for many of the companies I know and talk to. The lucky few get a ROI on their show. Many have to earn it back between the time the show ends and the next one begins. A good number never do and so they quit going. Some also quit as the show no longer is needed — they are the REALLY lucky ones.

Somewhere in all this, you are sure to hit one of the aforesaid targets.

:o)

Best of luck to you, Tood, and we wish you all success, whatever your decision may be.

Best regards,

Ron Lindeboom
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[Ron Lindeboom]

Bob,

I was reading along merrily thinking to myself that “Bob, you have written a nice thoughtful reply here,” when suddenly my mental train jumped the tracks and was derailed as I read…

[Bob Cole] “That was a great suggestion to use a form letter requiring clients to certify that they own the rights to such-and-such for such-and-such use. A good client should actually appreciate your thoughtfulness, as they are a lot more likely to get sued than you (they have more MONEY).”

This sounds logical and reasonable but it legally doesn’t hold an ounce (or 0.029 liters) of enforceability. As many others have cited in this thread and elsewhere, you cannot absolve yourself of legal culpability by participating in an illegal activity with a form fixing the blame on someone else. In most countries of the world, the fact is that all participants in a crime share equal responsibility — at least in theory.

No such form exists (that I have ever seen) and there is nowhere to download one as it would hold absolutely no legal weight in the present scheme of things.

Best regards,

Ron Lindeboom
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[Ron Lindeboom]

In order to get out on the main area and compete with the players there, you will be looking at at least $50,000 to be in ANY meaningful traffic flow area. That does not mean that you will be in the mega-flow regions. Below that and you are going to be in the fringe areas where flowers grow in the aisles without fear of being trampled.

For most of the small start-up businesses I know, that is simply out of line and the cost of having a booth at NAB is commensurate to spending their entire year’s ad budget just to be there. These start-ups better get it right and as most don’t, I can’t tell you the number of them that I have seen that are there one year and gone the next.

Please note that I am not saying that $50,000 is going to do much at NAB but that that is about a decent starter figure to play with. I know small businesses (that are not in start-up mode) that literally spend $400,000 and up to have their booths at NAB and be in the traffic areas.

That is why smaller businesses like plug-in developers pulled together and negotiated their original position on the floor under their association with Adobe. It gave them a way to leverage Adobe’s clout to their own advantage. There are other of these associative relationship placements on the NAB floor. If you can think of a way to do this with one of the bigger players that your new business may affect positively, then by all means talk to them and see if you can use their clout to your advantage.

Also, aside from getting your own booth, you can start negotiating with a bigger player — let’s say Promax, for example — and maybe you have the money to help expand their booth size next year. You end up with an area of their booth to show your new product and they end up making some of the money for it.

I am not saying that they would want to do this, or that they wouldn’t. I am merely saying that it is an idea of a way to start thinking.

Best regards,

Ron Lindeboom
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[Ron Lindeboom]

[Todd at Fantastic Plastic] “Firstly, I’m very glad to hear that based on what Ron and others had to say that showing at NAB as a vendor may turn out to be not quite as expensive as I had thought (I had feared the worst)… good news indeed. Maybe we will see some of you there next year.”

I am sorry to have left that impression in your mind, Todd. If you are new, you always get the crap locations at NAB. They are not cheap — but they are in all honesty nearly void of people. I wasn’t joking when I said that the “cheap seats” are out in the areas where you will be lucky to see one or two people in your aisle of booths. Most walk in the middle of the aisle as the booth rats in these booths look so hungry that people are almost afraid to stop for fear of being eaten or something.

It is not until you get into the main traffic flows that you will see any real benefit from NAB — and that will cost you a LOT of money. (Unless you find a partnering company who already has earned their stripes and shows on the main aisles in the heavy traffic areas.)

I do not want to sound like I am disparaging your ideas but the “cheap seats” are not really a viable option at NAB. Most times when I have wandered through those areas, I am the only person on the aisle I am walking. When I have stopped to talk to people there, they often tell you that they have talked to few people all day.

Seriously, find another option. The cheap booths are no bargain.

Best regards,

Ron Lindeboom
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[Ron Lindeboom]

You don’t owe us an apology, Alan. There are so many features in the COW that I doubt that most of our users know a 10th of them.

Bet you didn’t know that we don’t have an interface but instead have THREE of them. Bet you didn’t know that, did you? ;o)

You can set our interface to threads (our default interface), or a topical style (as some forums systems use), or a date sort presentation that some prefer. (You will find these features just below our host pictures in any of the forums here at the COW.)

This site is full of stuff like that. Just click on buttons and use some of the pulldowns — there are all kinds of things hidden all over the COW.

Find a great big thread with lots of replies in one of our forums. Then click the green “T” next to the first (original) post that started any of the great big threads in our forums and watch what happens. ;o)

Have fun, Alan, and thanks for being a part of the COW.

Best regards,

Ron Lindeboom
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Publisher, Creative COW Magazine
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[Ron Lindeboom]

[Tim Kolb] “I’m typically not arguing the positive points posed on all these other venues, just trying to figure out why it has to be an all or nothing situation for so many…”

For me personally, it’s not an all or nothing thing at all. Not everyone is well served by avoiding an event like NAB, and not everyone is well served by going to NAB.

For some companies, it makes perfect sense to go to NAB and the same holds true for many users. But conversely, the opposite is true and the only point I have tried to make in all of this is that as long as the NAB organization and the Las Vegas hotels conspire to raise the rates beyond what is reasonable — especially in a poor business climate and one with a falling dollar — of those for whom it does indeed make good business sense to go, they will find fewer and fewer takers.

But I doubt they’ll listen, and so as I said much earlier in this whole debate, they are likely killing their own goose that lays the golden eggs.

THAT is much of what my point is all about.

Just to clarify my stand.

Best regards,

Ron Lindeboom
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[Ron Lindeboom]

You don’t owe me an apology, Mick, and I was not taking issue with what you said, per se. I was more concerned as to a magazine encouraging this kind of thing. That was my real issue.

My apologies to you for not being clearer about that.

Best regards,

Ron Lindeboom
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Publisher, Creative COW Magazine
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[Ron Lindeboom]

Thank you for the kind words about the COW. They are appreciated.

There is a way to do what you ask: the tutorial section can be sorted by author, by application or by other ways as well. Just look at the links at the top of the tutorials section, to the right side, etc.

At the top, you will find broad categories and author links. To the right, you will find applications and other deeper ways to sort through the tutorials.

I have done a screen capture and have highlighted these links with a reddish overlay. Here they are so that you can see them…

I hope this helps.

Best regards,

Ron Lindeboom
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronlindeboom
Publisher, Creative COW Magazine
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[Ron Lindeboom]

As a first-time vendor at NAB, Todd, you will likely get a corner “office” back in the back somewhere. Counting all the fees even for the tiniest booth, you are likely going to be set back no less than about $20,000 (minimum) for the show special “dinker in a stinker” — that’s a crappy spot way off any real traffic patterns, in a locale where you can fire a cannon and rarely if ever hit a soul (and will likely join the Maytag repairman in dieing of loneliness, yearning for a soul to come by and talk to you). To that cost, you can add the other associated costs to it — hotel, travel, etc.

A better way to do this, might be to work out a distribution deal with a major retailer, distributor, etc., who is going to be showing at the event and support their showing of your product with advertising monies that you spend to drive people to the booth. They will likely be delighted to have you spend money in support of the product release and also work the booth to demo it. This way, you know it’s being shown.

For the money that you spend for a booth, you could buy a banner in the hall in which you will have your product — or perhaps buy a few 1/4 page ads in multiple editions of the Show Daily magazine given out at the event. (Be sure to grind on them as they have decreased in actual in-hand circulation due to lesser traffic even though they damned near doubled the rate.)

There are other magazines and things to do but as I seem to have offended one of the leaders here by mentioning the COW in relation to NAB, I will leave that to you to figure out. ;o)

Best regards,

Ron Lindeboom
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Publisher, Creative COW Magazine
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[Ron Lindeboom]

If you live at home, your parents can be made legally responsible for you and they could lose all that Mark Suszko laid out in his comments. So, if you are in that situation, think what they stand to lose, just so you can make a few bucks.

Don’t let yourself get started in this kind of business where “chump change” is the end result — if anything. You will be chasing chump change time and again if you do this.

Focus on getting some business for a real project that you truly control and can have the legitimate rights to and sell to people who are interested in the subject.

Best regards,

Ron Lindeboom
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronlindeboom
Publisher, Creative COW Magazine
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Now in the COW Magazine: Commercials. A look at the history, strategy, techniques and production workflows of successful commercials. All brought to you by some of the COW’s brightest members. Accept no substitutes!

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