In Data We Trust

We've had this conversation before . . . but it is worth another run through. In a recent article contributed to Trade Show Executive magazine Gary Shapiro and new CES president Kinsey Fabrizio make the case for auditing trade show attendance. (I seem to be writing about things related to CES a lot lately; unintentional I assure you). https://bit.ly/3xoplgj. They point out that audits are a way for a show to prove its worth; and that they are a "must-have" in a changing business environment where executives are relying more and more on verifiable data to measure return.

They also mention that audits fit an "ethos of honest disclosure" at CTA (the producers of CES). This may be the most important point raised in the article, as it gets to the relationship show organizers have with their exhibitors, as well as their audience. We need to approach the work of show organizing as servant leaders. We do what we do to serve a particular industry segment - a business community. And in serving them we owe it to them to be straight up about the product we are delivering - the people that participate in our show or shows. In doing so we build trust. Going the other way only leads to distrust, and that is not a place you want to be with your customers.

It is also a reality that you ultimately can't fool your customers. Here I am specifically talking about your exhibitors. They know when the numbers are up or down, and they have a pretty good sense for what the count is. When they see numbers that don't match their own calculations, they naturally assume you are hiding something . . . they don't trust what you are communicating to them. Again, this is a bad place to be. Registration and actual attendance numbers are two different things. Everyone knows that. There's no mystery. Why pretend that is not the case? All the numbers matter, even total registration as everyone that goes through the process of registering is likely a real and valuable member of the ecosystem. Their data matters too.

To some degree it shouldn't matter what the overall registration numbers are, as what matters is whether meaningful business is done. For some events it takes one closed transaction for an exhibitor to cover five, seven, ten times or more of the investment made in the show. Very often this is the case. It should not be about volume of people, but quality of connections. We have all heard that for many years as well. We just haven't done a good enough job reinforcing it with our customers . . . and providing them the supporting data (the real data) to help them validate the return.

In the end, there is a bigger picture here and a whole lot more show organizers can be doing to leverage data. But I am with Gary and Kinsey. Audits are a good idea, if for no other reason than they help establish trust between you and your customers. It would make sense for the industry to rally around audits, or at least standard approaches to tracking and reporting participation numbers; but this has been discussed for years. Not sure we will get there, but even if we don't get there collectively, there's a strong rationale for those that believe trust is good for business to go that way.