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We said the show was going to be "on fire"
by Karen Newman, Marketing & Communications, NMR Staging & Events
NMR is a prominent audiovisual leader in the tradeshow and corporate event arenas. At 3:46 a.m. on March 17, 2002, NMR's logistics operations director got an early and unexpected wake-up call. A tractor-trailer hauling 1,450 pieces of NMR's audiovisual equipment had caught fire in the middle of the Arizona desert. The truck was on its way from NMR's corporate office in New Jersey to Las Vegas, Nevada for the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association show.
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Evidently, the truck's brakes had malfunctioned, and all the equipment had been incinerated. Being more than 50 miles away from the nearest fire station, $900,000 worth of advanced technology was gone in no time flat. All that remained was a burned-out shell of a trailer and a large mess, both literally and figuratively. With the show opening in 72 hours, we had more than 20 clients that would be missing equipment!
A disaster-recovery team was formed and gathered within a couple of hours from the fateful call. After notifying and reassuring their clients, NMR focused on what was left in the warehouse. Some of the missing items had to be purchased or rented and flown right away to Vegas. By 2 p.m., almost every piece of replacement equipment had left by chartered jet, along with extra technicians, engineers and project managers. By 9 p.m., the final piece picked up its boarding pass and was on its way. Over the course of the next 24 hours, 90 percent of the equipment was configured and installed. When the show opened, all orders had been successfully completed. Mission accomplished!
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