Trade show and conference transportation across Canada

The organiser's problem

A conference is four hundred people arriving on sixty flights over two days, sleeping in three hotels, needing to be at a convention centre by 8:30 every morning and at a gala dinner across town on the Thursday, and leaving on eighty flights on the Friday. Left to themselves they book four hundred taxis and ride-apps, expense them to the organiser, and arrive in a trickle. Planned as a transport programme, they move in Sprinters and coaches on a schedule, the speakers and sponsors in sedans, and the whole thing is one plan, one dispatcher and one invoice. We build those programmes for organisers, associations, corporate event teams and destination-management companies in every city with a convention centre.

The venues

The Metro Toronto Convention Centre on Front Street and the Enercare Centre at Exhibition Place in Toronto; the International Centre and the Toronto Congress Centre beside Pearson in Mississauga. The Palais des congrès and Place Bonaventure in Montreal. The Vancouver Convention Centre's two buildings on the harbour in Vancouver. The Calgary TELUS Convention Centre and the BMO Centre at Stampede Park in Calgary. The Edmonton Convention Centre and the Expo Centre in Edmonton. The Shaw Centre beside the Rideau Canal in Ottawa. The RBC Convention Centre in Winnipeg. The Halifax Convention Centre in Halifax. The Centre des congrès de Québec in Quebec City. The Victoria Conference Centre. TCU Place in Saskatoon. Each has a loading arrangement for shuttles and a curb for pre-arranged cars, and the chauffeurs who work them know which door the security desk wants used.

The programme, piece by piece

Airport arrivals. Every delegate's flight number on a manifest; Sprinters and coaches scheduled to the arrival waves; a coordinator with a board at the pre-arranged area of the airport marshalling delegates to the next departure; sedans for the speakers and the sponsors' executives with meet and greet inside. The airport transfer standard - flight tracking, waiting time included - applies to every vehicle.

The hotel-to-venue shuttle. A loop between the hotel block and the convention centre on a timetable - every fifteen minutes from 7:30 to 9:30, every thirty through the day, every ten as the sessions end - with the timetable printed in the delegate app. Sprinters for a hotel a few blocks away; coaches for a block across town.

The offsite. The gala, the dinner, the tour: coaches from the venue or the hotels to the offsite and back on a schedule, with the last departure fixed so the caterer knows when the room empties.

Speakers, VIPs and sponsors. Sedans on call for the keynote speaker, the association's president, the platinum sponsor's CEO - the hourly chauffeur held for the day, or point-to-point transfers on a schedule the organiser controls.

Departures. The reverse of arrivals: a departure manifest, vehicles scheduled to the flight waves, and a coordinator at the hotel lobby.

Exhibitor logistics. The exhibitor's team from the airport, the booth staff between the hotel and the hall each morning, the SUV for the samples and the pop-up displays. Booked by the exhibitor on a corporate account and invoiced to them.

How a programme is built

The organiser sends the dates, the venues, the hotel block, the expected numbers and the draft agenda. The desk returns a transport plan: the vehicle types and counts for each movement, the timetable, the coordinator staffing, and a single price. The plan is revised as the registration numbers firm up; the final manifests come in the week before. During the event a dispatcher is assigned to the programme and reachable by the organiser's team; the coordinators at the airport and the hotels wear the event's lanyard. Afterwards, one invoice with the programme itemised.

Numbers and vehicles

Executive Sprinters carry fourteen with luggage and fit a hotel forecourt; mini coaches carry thirty-two with under-floor bays; full-size coaches for larger programmes are arranged through the same plan. Sedans and SUVs for the individuals. A four-hundred-delegate conference in Toronto with a three-hotel block typically runs two coaches and three Sprinters on the shuttle, six sedans on call and a coordinator at each hotel; the desk has the models and will size it with you. The fleet page shows the capacities.

Accessibility and duty of care

Every programme includes an accessible vehicle on call for delegates who need one, arranged with notice in every city. The programme's chauffeurs hold the provincial commercial licence and the criminal record check, and the vehicle plates and chauffeur identities are on the manifest for the organiser's duty-of-care file, which associations increasingly require. The standards are the Limousine Association International's.

Incentive travel and the corporate offsite

The same programme structure covers the incentive trip - the sales team's reward week in Whistler or Banff - and the corporate offsite, with the city-to-city drive from the airport to the resort as the opening movement and a Sprinter held at the resort for the excursions. Destination Canada's business events team and the provincial convention bureaus - Destination Toronto, Tourisme Montréal, Destination Vancouver - are the organiser's first call for the venue; we are the call for the vehicles.

Toronto's convention calendar, as an example

The city's big shows repeat annually and the transport programmes with them: the Canadian International AutoShow in February, the Prospectors and Developers convention in early March - the largest mining gathering in the world and a fortnight when every car in the city is booked - the National Home Show, Collision in June, the CNE and TIFF in August and September, the Royal Winter Fair in November. An organiser planning a programme in any of those weeks should book the vehicles when the venue is booked; the Toronto page has the city's calendar and the Metro Toronto Convention Centre's site has the venue's.

A four-hundred-delegate programme, worked through

An association's annual meeting at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, Wednesday to Friday in March, hotel block at three Front Street hotels, gala on the Thursday at the Liberty Grand. Arrivals Tuesday and Wednesday morning: two hundred and sixty flights into Pearson and forty into Billy Bishop, manifested by the registration system; two coaches and four Sprinters on the Pearson pre-arranged area from 10 am to 10 pm Tuesday with a coordinator, running to the hotel block as each wave lands; sedans with meet and greet for the twelve speakers and the sponsors' executives. Wednesday to Friday: the hotel-to-venue shuttle is walkable for two hotels and a Sprinter loop for the third, every fifteen minutes from 7:30 to 9 and every ten from 4:30 to 6. Thursday evening: three coaches from the convention centre to the Liberty Grand at 6:30 and a loop back to the hotels from 10 pm to midnight. Friday: departures manifested by flight, coaches and Sprinters from the hotel lobbies to Pearson from 11 am, a coordinator in each lobby. One dispatcher for the week, one invoice in April. The organiser's team spent the event in the sessions, not on the phone.

Calgary, Vancouver and the other centres

The same programme runs at the Vancouver Convention Centre, where the harbour-side venue's shuttle curb is on Canada Place Way and the hotel block is walkable but the airport is not; at the Calgary TELUS Convention Centre and the BMO Centre, where Stampede week and the energy conferences fill the city; at the Palais des congrès in Montreal, where the underground city means the shuttle is for the airport and the gala rather than the hotels; at the Shaw Centre in Ottawa, where the government calendar sets the dates; and at the Halifax Convention Centre, where the airport is thirty-five kilometres out and the airport shuttle is the whole programme. Each city's page on this site carries the venue's curb arrangement and the airports page the pre-arranged area at each gateway.

Resort conferences

Whistler, Banff, Muskoka, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Mont-Tremblant, Blue Mountain: the resort conference's transport is the city-to-city drive from the airport as the opening movement - coaches for the delegates, SUVs for the speakers - and Sprinters held at the resort for the excursions. The weather on the Sea-to-Sky or the Trans-Canada is part of the plan and the chauffeurs read it; the provinces pages carry the seasonal notes.

Sponsors' and exhibitors' own programmes

A platinum sponsor often runs its own hospitality alongside the conference - a client dinner, a suite at the game, a helicopter tour - and books the vehicles on its own corporate account, coordinated with the main programme so the sponsor's sedans are on the same manifest and the same dispatcher. Exhibitors moving samples and displays book SUVs and Sprinters the same way, with the venue's marshalling yard and dock hours on the plan.

Accessibility, sustainability and the RFP

Associations' RFPs increasingly ask three questions of a transport supplier: the accessible-vehicle provision, the emissions of the fleet, and the duty-of-care records. We answer all three in writing: an accessible vehicle on call within every programme; a fleet that includes hybrid and electric sedans in the larger cities, with coaches for the mass movements because a full coach is the lowest-emission way to move forty people across a city; and the manifest with chauffeur identity, vehicle plate and trip timestamps for the organiser's file. The Limousine Association International standards are the reference.

Booking

Send the dates, the venue, the hotel block, the draft agenda and the expected numbers to the desk through the contact page. A plan and a price come back within two business days; the plan is refined as the numbers firm up and the manifests arrive the week before.

What goes wrong without a programme, and what it costs

The organiser who leaves transport to the delegates pays for it three times. First in the expense claims: four hundred taxi and ride-app receipts, each in a different name, each needing a code, arriving for six weeks after the event. Second in the arrival: delegates trickling into the opening session for forty minutes, the keynote speaker's car lost at the wrong terminal, the sponsor's CEO in a queue at the taxi rank with a laptop bag and an opinion. Third in the gala: a hundred people trying to summon cars from a venue with one driveway at 11 pm, the app on surge, the caterer waiting to lock up. A programme costs less than the receipts, and the desk will put the numbers side by side in the proposal.

Working with the destination-management company

Many large events use a destination-management company for the venue, the offsite and the entertainment, and we work alongside it: the DMC's run of show is the transport plan's spine, the DMC's onsite team and our coordinators share a radio channel, and the invoice goes to whichever party the contract names. DMCs in every Canadian city know us and several send their programmes directly; an organiser without a DMC gets the same plan from the desk.

The week before and the day of

The week before, the manifests arrive - arrivals by flight, departures by flight, the VIP list, the accessibility requests - and dispatch builds the vehicle schedule from them. The day before, the coordinators walk the airport's pre-arranged area and the hotels' forecourts. On the day, the dispatcher assigned to the programme is on a direct line to the organiser's team and moves vehicles as the flights move; a delayed wave at Pearson shifts a coach without a phone call from the organiser. Afterwards, the invoice with the programme itemised and, if the organiser wants it, a report of every movement with times for next year's planning.

Plan a conference programme