To trade show or not to trade show?

I have been for the first time in a trade show in 2004 to setup a robot workcell for an exhibitor. As a technician trade shows has often been terrible (you always lack time, tools, spare parts...). Later, being in charge of sales and marketing activities, I had to face the really hard problem of predicting how much (or even if) a particular exhibition will benefit the company.

There are two obvious downsides of taking a stand: it will cost you a lot (directly and indirectly) and it will subtract resources to your normal activities. More than this compared to any online campaign it is a one shot activity: you can't test and you can't scale. Anyway if I look how we got in touch with our main customers the first contact happened mostly at trade shows.

For the first time this week I visited Coiltech?, International Coil Winding Exhibition & Conference organized by QUiCKFairs? and it has been an interesting experience. It looks like the organization really tried to do things in a different way. The trade show lasts only 2 days (reduce cost and workload for exhibitors) and all booths are directly built by the organization (no race of armaments).

In a smart way they worked also on the other side of the experience: how to make it quick for visitors too. If there is one thing that everyone hates is the long queue for a sandwich (this is generally worst in Europe than in USA) so QUiCKFairs? provided a free lunchpack and free snacks for everyone.

I understand this can not be a general recipe for all trade shows but a couple of points should be a lesson for all organizers:

1. if you think that adding one more day adds value for exhibitors you are probably wrong. If that day is a Saturday you are wrong for sure.

2. if you look at queues somewhere in the show as a sign of success you are wrong. That is bad flow organization.

Anyway if anyone is going to attend BIMU Milan I will be there on Friday and Saturday(!) and I would happily meet you in person.