Tales from the Trade Show Floor

Welcome to the second installment in this series, recounting my travels and conference observations. Here's a link to the first edition.

It has been said the days are long, but the years are short. Such is the case with the trade show calendar, when it feels like every conference is scheduled between two hectic windows throughout the year. Suddenly, poof, the year is half-over and you're wondering where the time went.

We'll ramp up and hit the busy season between March-June and again September-November, with a welcome reprieve during the summer and winter months in between, respectively. Let's keep our HR friends at ease and assure them this does not mean unsanctioned paid vacations!

Proactive > Reactive. The rolling conference calendar operates on twelve month cycles (and longer in some cases), rather than the traditional year-round calendar. As previously mentioned, the sponsorship contracting phase often begins 12 months in advance. The tactical planning generally begins in earnest six months prior to actual conference dates. Of course lead times will vary, depending on the scope of your activation and engagement plans at each conference. Sharing a couple of learnings:

1. It's critically important to help educate leadership on this calendar dynamic. By proactively establishing our priorities for the following year, we can forecast and account for the budgetary impact to the current fiscal year. Failure to do so can strain your budget and also result in missed sponsorship opportunities. For example, if you're prioritizing a conference in Q1/Q2 of 2025, you will have to formally commit and pay the sponsorship invoice in 2024. Accounting for these future deposits will help with your budget management and ensure you've secured funding for your preferred sponsorships next year.

2. For me personally, early in my career managing trade shows, I was often lulled into a false sense of security over the summer. Preparations had already kicked off for the fall campaign and we'd started locking in sponsorships for next year. Feeling good and ahead of the curve, right? Not so fast my friends. I'd often overlook the fact that the Q1 conferences are coming right on the heels of the fall and my business partners were anxious to start planning. And in some cases, planning began during those peak Sept-Nov months, which often resulted in system overload since I was focused on executing the current shows. Now, I'll take advantage of July-August and start the conference playbooks for those Q1 shows and have the framework ready to start those internal conversations. Your internal and external/agency partners will also appreciate the early head-starts on each project!

Find your off-season. I'll be the first to admit, years ago when starting this role, I didn't know the rhythm of our conference calendar and taking a vacation was a struggle. Kristin Baker, PCC can attest to the three day maximum. I had not yet found the optimal windows to truly unplug and enjoy vacation. Instead, I was sneaking away to scan email and work. By the way, has anyone ever read just one email? Yeah, that went how you'd expect...hours later still huddled over my laptop and fielding responses from colleagues, saying "I thought you were on PTO?" and the like. We're all human and we all need to recharge. I was burning myself out by not taking/allowing myself any meaningful down time. Carving out these breaks is critical to well-being and returning to work energized.

Celebrate success. With hectic schedules, heavy workloads and a steady list of deliverables, it's easy to skip right past a successful event. Everyone is happy, onto the next thing we go, right? But wait, beyond the recognition and positive feedback, which is always appreciated, there's additional benefit to evaluating what worked (and of course what can be improved). How did we achieve our outcome? What processes were applied? Which partners were engaged to help support your efforts? The list of factors and variables goes on and on; the key here is to identify those successful best practices and continue building on them. Conversely, were there any unproductive or inefficient activities? If so, try to remove those time traps. Doing so will help optimize your conference project management.

In the spirit of celebrating success, a recent example of a collaborative effort, which I'm extremely proud to have supported, was our Evernorth sponsorship activation at the recent AHIP conference. For nearly a year, new teams were engaged, including a wide variety of internal stakeholders, marketing, brand, creative and our agency partners - culminating at the conference and being able to showcase our brand with several thought leadership sessions, prominent sponsor recognition, a private reception and the debut of a new custom designed exhibit booth. Much was learned throughout this experience and we'll continue to refine the process. And now, we can turn our view to the next project, where there's always an opportunity to improve!

That's a wrap for now - hope everyone enjoyed a safe and fun 4th of July!