Orlando · Guide

A trade show floor is eight hours of standing on concrete

Orlando hosts an enormous convention calendar, which means a steady population of people working trade show floors. Working a booth is a standing job, on concrete, under hard light, for eight or nine hours, while being pleasant to strangers. It reads as a desk job and it is not.

Standing still on concrete is the whole issue

Walking lets your muscles take turns. Standing still does not, and a polished concrete floor returns nothing. Eight hours of that, several days running, is a genuine physical shift that nobody prepares for because it does not look like one.

• Move your feet on purpose. Step, shift, change which leg carries more, constantly.
• If there is anything to put a foot up on, use it and swap. Raising one foot unloads a lower back more than it seems like it should.
• A mat under you is worth more than better shoes, and most stands can get one.

Load in and load out

The actual injuries mostly happen at either end, moving cases and stands, tired and against the clock. Same rule as anywhere: turn your feet toward what you are lifting rather than twisting to reach it, and make two trips.

Talking all day

A day of leaning in to hear people in a loud hall is a day of holding your neck forward and slightly rotated. That is why your neck hurts after a show even though you did nothing physical.

When it is worth talking to somebody

Tired legs and a stiff back after a show that clear in a few days are the job. Worth a conversation with a qualified provider: pain present when you wake before the day starts, anything travelling down an arm or leg, numbness or tingling, or a neck that has started limiting how far you can turn.

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