When I first joined the ecobee team back in November 2011, I was faced with the daunting task of planning for ecobee’s largest annual tradeshow—AHR 2012—attracting over 50,000 visitors.  As this was my first involvement with tradeshow planning, I was quite unsure as to what I was in for.  After three months of intense planning, which included some long days and very late nights, the time had finally come.  Chris Carradine (Vice President, Marketing at ecobee) and I were 30,000 feet in the air en-route to Chicago!

Building the Booth

It’s hard to imagine what a tradeshow that hosts over 2,000 exhibitors from over 30 countries around the world would look like, but I was absolutely speechless when I arrived at the McCormick centre—I had never seen a space so large. We managed to find our booth location, and slowly began to tick off the to-do list. I had been warned that the McCormick centre was generally kept quite cold, however that was an understatement.  It was frigid.  Equipped with a winter jacket, a hat and mitts (and taking periodic warm-up breaks), Chris and I began to assemble the pieces of the puzzle.  Following some minor injuries—including near frost-bite on our fingers—and a few quick fixes, the ecobee booth was looking sharp.

Show Time

The balance of the ecobee team arrived on Sunday night for our annual sales meeting, and before we knew it Monday morning had rolled around and we were headed to AHR 2012.  Walking onto the show floor on Monday was something of a miracle.  It was almost as if all the booths had been assembled and carpets had been laid down overnight.  And (luckily for me) the temperature had warmed from the increased number of bodies. Within minutes of the show opening, we had an influx of visitors to the ecobee booth.  Many people had to line up for product demos due to the volume of eager customers waiting to get a glimpse of ecobee’s new Smart Si thermostat and the redesigned Contractor Web Portal.  The steady flow of people visiting the booth remained constant throughout the show, and our team members were lucky to even get a bathroom break.

The stamina of the ecobee team was tremendous.  I learned that it takes a lot of energy to be on your feet all-day, actively engaged with customers at all times.  These guys are energizer bunnies!

A Team Building Experience

Being a fairly new employee to ecobee, I had not had the pleasure of working with all of the sales staff who were present at AHR before.  I was able to finally learn more about our Regional Sales Managers coming from different areas of the U.S., and even one from Australia.  I immediately felt at home and welcomed by the group. I look forward to working with them on future projects and I’m sure they are anxiously awaiting the daily reminders and emails they will be receiving from me

I thoroughly enjoyed my AHR experience and learned a great deal about event planning.  Now I am back in our Toronto, Canada office, putting the wheels in motion for the 2013 AHR Expo in Dallas.

 

Barbara Candlish joined ecobee in November 2011 in the capacity of Sales and Marketing Coordinator. Previously Barbara worked at No.9: Contemporary Art & the Environment in Marketing, Communications and Event Planning. Before working at No.9, Barbara completed the Sport and Event Marketing Program at George Brown College while interning at Ontario Basketball. Barbara attained her B.ScK (Kinesiology) from Dalhousie University in 2007.