Learning the platform from the inside out

Multi Family Northwest runs a full calendar across Oregon: Spectrum and Maintenance Mania in the Portland metro area, Prism down in Eugene, and the annual ACE Awards. Booth registration for the two biggest shows now sells out within a month of opening.

The change was handing selection to the members. Before, supplier members queued up by email on the morning registration opened and the team allocated space first come, first served. Now exhibitors choose their own spot, their own price tier and their own add-ons, without waiting hours for an email back.

Laura Webb inherited Map D in an unusual way. When the association onboarded she was the administrative assistant and sat out the training entirely. She was later promoted to event coordinator and had to learn the platform without ever having been walked through it.

She describes the learning curve as small, and credits two things. She had already been inside the system, given a login to help the previous coordinator update speakers and classes, so the schedule tools were familiar before the job was hers. And the answers came quickly when she needed them, from her account manager and from whoever covered when he was away.

The features Webb singles out are the unglamorous ones that decide whether a launch goes smoothly. Booth types carry over from one event to the next, so the setup she built last year is waiting for her this year rather than being rebuilt from scratch.

The multiple booth editor is what lets her price the hall: marking which booths are platinum, which are member-only and which are standard, so she controls what counts as a premium spot. On launch morning she stages every change and saves on the stroke of eight, so nobody emails asking why they cannot buy yet.

A floor plan is rarely the last stop for exhibitor data. Webb's most-used feature is the exhibitor export, because her expo services contractor needs a list of every exhibitor with booth numbers and sizes, and that list has to be right on the day it is handed over.

She also uses the exhibitor list to look companies up quickly, and Access Manager to see who is opening her emails, which is useful when chasing the exhibitors who have not finished their profiles.

Maintenance Mania and Spectrum both run at the convention center in the Portland metro area. Prism exists because Eugene is a two-hour drive and not every member there will make the trip north, so the association brings a smaller version of the show to them, and it is moving onto the same platform.

New floor plans arrive from the venue through her contractor and come back as an interactive plan in three to four days, or about a working week at the outside.