Sarah Hearn is the Production Manager at AVFX and she spends part of every day in our warehouse. One of her most important responsibilities is to ensure the efficient, error-free management of our event technology.
There’s a lot of steps that we have to take — before the truck even rolls into the venue — here at the warehouse. One of the most important things we do starts when the show comes back to the warehouse and the techs go through everything.
Check It In and Out
They make sure that the cases have all their contents. There’s a list in every case so they know that everything’s there. And then when it’s time to pack the shows, it’s the show technicians that are doing that. So they have an opportunity to go through everything, make sure all the gear has that QC label on it. Then they put it into the designated zone in the warehouse so it’s separated from other shows going out that day or gear that’s coming back that day.
Packing for a Road Trip
Trade shows, long distance shows, require some extra attention because of the logistics that they have to ship early. So they have to be packed in advance. We spend extra time testing gear, making sure that all the contents are right, possibly delivering the gear to an exhibit builder so they can test and make sure that it fits in the casework so you’re not dealing with that problem onsite. All the cases are numbered and the warehouse manager will count them as they go out the door and that’s how we know everything is on it’s way to the show floor.
Wrapping Up the Show
At the end of the show, we’ll have an additional crew come in to assist with the tear down. That will help speed things along and save you some overtime with your show crew who has been there all day. We have the truck driver scheduled to come at a designated time. So he’ll help load all the gear on to the truck, make sure everything’s secured properly and bring it back to AVFX. The whole crew will come back here, unload, put the gear in its designated zone.