To show busy or not - that is the question

As the exhibition industry opens up, one of the biggest challenges is how to market the shows to be appealing to visitors and the exhibitors alike. 

The two have very different needs to be addressed in an exhibition context and therefore there are two different sets of objectives and priorities. 

Historically, it has all been about the numbers. How many registrations, how much footfall, the number of visitors each day, number of decision makers etc. There is a whole industry around visitor data! 

Post pandemic and as the world begins to go back to a new kind of open, using these drivers is no longer relevant and could be counter productive. 

I am not convinced that the average expo visitor wants to mingle with strangers to wander round a large hall in a time when, in the UK, the virus is still circulating but thanks to a rapid vaccination program, its effects are significantly reduced. While the medical side has allowed us the freedoms we have to curb the impact of Covid19, our UK laws still require us to isolate if we become infected.

From this, our mental state - our programmed norm is now less people, less mingling. 

Which brings us back to the promotion of exhibitions to visitors and delegates.

As an exhibitor, you want lots of people in the show. Correction - lots of the right people in the show. As a visitor, you don't want that many to risk an 'outbreak'.

This is where the opportunity lies. Event companies should be focusing more on how they can deliver the right people to their customers, exhibitors should also be proactive in doing the same thing. 

What do I mean? I live near Milton Keynes Shopping Centre. It's big and busy with lots of footfall. Say you were an online retailer with an affordable luxury item that appealed to the average shopper. You have been offered a shop for two days for x thousand pounds/ dollars. Do you just turn up, put your stuff in the store, some posters on the window and the walls and then sit and wait? At the end of the two days when you are x thousand poorer, not many sales to balance the cost and your list hasn't grown that much either - do you blame CMK shopping centre? This is (still) what a lot of exhibition exhibitors do. Turn up and hope for the best!

If you were going to have a pop up shop at one of the UK's busiest shopping centres, you would market it. You would work with the Shopping Centre, any of your partners to make the two days as successful as possible. Success defined as being profitable and having grown your list.

Which takes us back to how to promotion of the show. How do you appeal to both the exhibitor for selling space and the visitor. Surely a piece of this puzzle is a dedicated resource that works with the exhibitors to ensure that the visitors are the 'right' kind of exhibitor.

Perhaps a wider piece of educational marketing to go out with registrations about how to be a great delegate in this post pandemic exhibiting world?

I'd welcome your thoughts.