How do you deal with the fact that it seems nobody really WANTS to be at a trade show- and if they’re not stuck on the show flow with nothing to do they have no incentive to glance at the booths?
>it seems nobody really WANTS to be at a trade show
What experience do you base that on?
From what I've seen, the attendees genuinely love visiting trade shows. Actually, it's one of the few examples of people voluntarily paying for ads to be shown to them.
Trade shows are like the adult "Disney World" with "toys" relevant to their professional area:
+ Interior designers like the annual Kitchen & Bath trades shows. They like the furniture trade shows.
+ Home builders like trade shows of new architectural products and construction materials
+ cabinet makers like the woodworking machinery trade shows to see what new technology can make their factory run better. Similar with machine shops attending annual CNC & metalworking trade shows.
+ music store employees enjoy visiting the annual NAMM show to see latest gear for making and recording music
+ Not just working professionals but also end consumers pay to attend trade shows such as CES Consumer Electronics Show, and Home & Garden shows that are popular in big cities each Spring.
The trade show that may be boring to some is the enterprise software type where one booth is Oracle and the next booth is Xerox showing their document management solutions.
[Edit to reply] : >Most of the time though, the attendees would be bored. Walking around, not talking to anyone, waiting for time to pass
Understand that but that's also how people walking around at Disney's parks appear as well. People do look bored in between the 2 minute thrill of the rides. That's different from concluding that "nobody wants to be at Disney" or generalizing to "nobody really WANTS to be at a trade show". There are many interesting trade shows that attract attendees and they pay for their own tickets to be exposed to the latest developments in their areas of interest.
The type of trade show that would have bored disengaged attendees would be the ones where most of the tickets are paid by the employers. (E.g. enterprise software event.)
But there are other trade shows where people genuinely want to be there. E.g. the farm trade shows where farmers will drive 4 hours to see the latest tractors and farm equipment to make their lives easier. And yes, the farmers may look bored while they are walking the trade show floor. :-)
> >it seems nobody really WANTS to be at a trade show
> What experience do you base that on?
I worked for years inside an exhibition hall (they had offices we rented) and there were constantly trade shows for all sorts of things. On breaks I'd wander around and look at whatever it was.
It was predictable what was popular and what wasn't. If you had a celebrity talking, that would be popular. Anyone else, it's free seats.
Canapés, aperitifs, anything consumable would be popular.
Most of the time though, the attendees would be bored. Walking around, not talking to anyone, waiting for time to pass between the one or two meetings they'd have for the day.
Exactly - I should have been more clear. People love trade shows for a “paid work vacation” and “expense account beers” and free chochkees but few people seem to be terribly interested in the booths and exhibits beyond those.
During your time at the exhibition hall, did you see any trade shows that had more overall activity and interest among all their booths? I'm curious to know if there were things done by event organizers with theme or type of event that could help make a tradeshow be desired or enjoyable.
Tradeshows about new tech for example, such as CES, typically are interesting for people to discover what new things are being developed.
It seemed very dependent on industry. Unglamorous stuff like window manufacturing would be a ghost town. Anything more towards consumers would also draw in people from the street.
Hi, thanks for your question. Our most recent event was for 800+ attendees with 130+ booths, for COVID-19 Relief. This event had luminaries such as: Dr Sanjay Gupta - Chief CNN Medical Correspondent, Dr Celine Grounder from the White House Covid-19 Task Force, Dr Hotez, and more from all over the world. The vendors had all sorts of COVID-19 solutions of high caliber. People have been engaged while in Venu.
Please come on in and have a look for yourself.
What experience do you base that on?
From what I've seen, the attendees genuinely love visiting trade shows. Actually, it's one of the few examples of people voluntarily paying for ads to be shown to them.
Trade shows are like the adult "Disney World" with "toys" relevant to their professional area:
+ Interior designers like the annual Kitchen & Bath trades shows. They like the furniture trade shows.
+ Home builders like trade shows of new architectural products and construction materials
+ cabinet makers like the woodworking machinery trade shows to see what new technology can make their factory run better. Similar with machine shops attending annual CNC & metalworking trade shows.
+ music store employees enjoy visiting the annual NAMM show to see latest gear for making and recording music
+ security experts attend surveillance tech trade show showing latest cameras, locks, laser mics, etc
+ Not just working professionals but also end consumers pay to attend trade shows such as CES Consumer Electronics Show, and Home & Garden shows that are popular in big cities each Spring.
The trade show that may be boring to some is the enterprise software type where one booth is Oracle and the next booth is Xerox showing their document management solutions.
[Edit to reply] : >Most of the time though, the attendees would be bored. Walking around, not talking to anyone, waiting for time to pass
Understand that but that's also how people walking around at Disney's parks appear as well. People do look bored in between the 2 minute thrill of the rides. That's different from concluding that "nobody wants to be at Disney" or generalizing to "nobody really WANTS to be at a trade show". There are many interesting trade shows that attract attendees and they pay for their own tickets to be exposed to the latest developments in their areas of interest.
The type of trade show that would have bored disengaged attendees would be the ones where most of the tickets are paid by the employers. (E.g. enterprise software event.)
But there are other trade shows where people genuinely want to be there. E.g. the farm trade shows where farmers will drive 4 hours to see the latest tractors and farm equipment to make their lives easier. And yes, the farmers may look bored while they are walking the trade show floor. :-)