Showing up to a trade show and learning your most important asset is missing can cause heart rates to rise. But it's even worse knowing your item is less than 30 miles away, and you simply cannot go get it.

LabelExpo is the largest label event in the Americas and was being held in Anaheim, CA. The exhibit house where I work was in charge of providing the exhibit for Ko-Pack, an international packaging company. The centerpiece of the booth was a massive printing press, which was to be shipped from Japan to the venue via a three-week sea voyage.

Our installation team arrived on Saturday and began building the exhibit for show open on Tuesday. Things were sailing along smoothly, so I didn't arrive at the convention center until Monday morning. As I entered the booth, I was shocked to learn the printing press was nowhere to be found. To say our client was panicky would be an understatement, so I immediately got on the phone with our shipping company and found out we had a tsunami-sized hiccup.

While the ship carrying the press had arrived on time and was waiting out at sea for the go-ahead to dock, the Longshoremen's union, which handles the loading and unloading of cargo ships, was in the midst of a contract dispute and grinding operations at the dock to a crawl. So we didn't have any idea when our ship would dock, how soon it would be unloaded, nor how quickly it would move through customs. I felt like I needed to part the Red Sea to get my hands on that shipping crate, and I only had 24 hours to do it.

Like any trade show team worth its salt, we maintain a robust network of local suppliers and talent. I started dialing everyone to see if they had a connection at the port. During what felt like the millionth call, I reached a supplier that used to be a customs agent. Woot! Better yet, he knew the staff at the harbor and told us he'd see what he could learn.

He called back an hour later confirming that the ship was hanging out at sea, but the container holding our press was stacked near the top. That meant once the ship was unloaded, our crate would be one of the first items off. Even better, our ship was headed in to dock at that very moment. I don't know if our ex-customs friend had enough sway to change the order of ships or not. Either way, I felt like we had a shot at getting the press to the venue in time.

We had a truck on standby at the harbor, so the second that crate hit dry land, we were ready to move. Later that afternoon, I got word that it'd cleared customs without a hitch, and our printing press was rolling our way. At 5 p.m., the truck arrived at the convention center's loading dock, and the waiting crew hauled that press to the exhibit. We spent all night rigging the machine, and by 9 a.m. on Tuesday it was assembled just in time for visitors.

While we may have had a lucky wind at our backs during those last 24 hours, our network of local contacts proved invaluable yet again. After all, luck favors the well prepared.