Proving the Value of Your Expo

Proving the Value of Your Expo

Last month, I attended the SISO CEO Summit in Las Vegas. With over 300+ for-profit trade show industry executives and supplier counterparts, there was one reoccurring theme: Proving the value of live, in-person exhibitions to our stakeholders.

This is the BIG PROBLEM most organizers are trying to solve. Companies and entire industries survived the pandemic without in-person b2b events, and some may never come back. And, as costs rise to exhibit along with travel to show site across the country (or the world), proving the value of expos to all stakeholders has never been a higher priority.

As we’ve seen with the NAMM Show recently, former stalwart and anchor exhibitors like Fender no longer see the value in exhibiting. They adapted and found a way to deepen relationships with retail outlets and end users (musicians). E3 didn’t modernize along with their industry, and now it’s gone. (Truthfully, that show had many issues through the years and never fully recovered to its glory days.)

Where to start?

Begin offering what your exhibitors, visitors and sponsors CANNOT GET online: Experiences.

Not everything has to be an expensive “activation.” Many I've seen on show floors are useless! They don't correlate to who the sponsor and what they are selling. It’s like this cat herding commercial that aired during the US Superbowl during the tech boom. The commercial was memorable. The advertiser? Not.

Encourage your exhibitors to have fun with their booths and displays. Ease up on stupid display rules that don’t work. Teach them how to better interact with and educate visitors.

Other ideas include sponsoring regional competitions and paying for the winners to compete at the big show for prizes and bragging rights. Or stage a production line on your show floor highlighting the latest in technology and sell sponsorships for product inclusion. Challenge your teams to get creative and greenlight new ideas that will bring buyers and sellers together that add energy to the show floor. If new initiatives or program succeed right out of the box, awesome! If they fail, perhaps they can be tweaked for success in the next edition.

Invest in good matchmaking tech and designate an area on the show floor to hold meetings, besides exhibitors’ stands. Purposefully design digital offerings (webinars, round tables, etc.) to drive in-person attendance. Offer the disruptors in your industry a place to share. Put them on stage. Strategically orchestrate those “can’t miss moments.”

Create FOMO. Create Connections. Provide an Engaging Business Environment.

Stop using the same old boring and useless statistics from shows gone by. Instead of the number of visitors, use the number of engagements. Instead of how many exhibitors or square feet/meters, share the variety of products, equipment, and services on your show floor – especially the new ones. Use social media strategically to entice and engage your audience and community build.

Change your show hours. If you have a heavy educational program on site (as many associations do), hold them at different times than the exhibit floor. Find out what success looks like to your stakeholders, then help them achieve it.

Prove your show’s value by staying invaluable to its ecosystem.


If you liked this edition of the Global Glimpse, please share it with others! The first 1000 subscribers to this newsletter will be entered into a drawing for a 2-hour International 101 Training Session for their team (on-line or in-person depending on location) or a 1-hour international one-on-one update with Stephanie.

Thanks for reading!

Francis Friedman

Strategy, branding and tradeshow expert. Helping clients build highly profitable, market leading brands…and successfully re-start in the rapidly changing post-COVID marketplace.

1 年

Steph, appreciate that this is a significant problem...and one I have been speaking to over these past five years. From my perspective we are actually in the CONTENT business. Our new business model is..."to produce HIGH VALUE content so Compelling audiences will pay us to produce it." By knowing what our audiences Value that is so Compelling to them, before we produce the show, we will have no problem justifying the show after it is over. Content includes every aspect of an event from exhibitors, to ed-topics, to networking elements to food & beverage, etc. The more we know the compelling value aspects of these content pieces the more on-target the produced event will be as a success. Another way to look at this historical question is to ask yourself..."fully describe the "experience" you want your event to deliver and put a $ value on it." In recent years we have said we are in the "experience" business but we have not fully defined what that experience really is for a given audience. We are now facing Recession 2023 and the company CFO (Chief Financial Officer) is in charge of funding our events (attendees and exhibitors) and seeing to it that all expenditures have a significant ROI. Know the value first. Deliver the ROI!

Kimberly Hardcastle

Marketing Strategist, Entrepreneur, Business Consultant

1 年

"Stop using the same old boring and useless statistics from shows gone by. Instead of the number of visitors, use the number of engagements. Instead of how many exhibitors or square feet/meters, share the variety of products, equipment, and services on your show floor – especially the new ones." Amen, sister.

Robert Levy

Owner at Levy Photography

1 年

Great thoughts Stephanie ! I would also say, even with more intense tech and Ed sessions there is a need to re-think how to present them. The paradigm of presentation must be changed from the same old non interactive feeding the fish dynamic …or classrooms configured in a stale arrangement! I can’t say how many times I’m asked to create dynamic presentations from moribund situations…

Richard Smith

I am an experienced Sales Leader with a passion for driving growth and building high-performance teams I IAEE 2024 Outstanding Marketing & Sales Award Winner I Informa Sales Leadership Award winner

1 年

Great read Stephanie Selesnick, reason 1001 why you rock

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