My Show Management Philosophy

By Jason C. McGraw, CTS

It’s the classic battle of the “chicken or the egg, which comes first?”  - attendees or exhibitors?  One could argue that you can not have one with out the other and in the case of shows – that is true, you need both to succeed.  It’s always easy to focus on building the show floor first – because that’s where the majority of the revenue from the show comes from.

However, you must also focus on promoting the show from day one to the audience at large.  By doing so, you also impact your exhibit sales.  Press mentions, ads, brochures, e-mail blasts working in concert on a consistent basis throughout the sales/promotion cycle leading up to the show drives both attendance and exhibit sales.  Plus the added media visibility drives existing exhibitors’ confidence and value perception of the quality and expectations for the show.

Bottom line: spend whatever it takes to build the audience at your show – in time, you’ll have happier exhibitors, higher retention rates, more exhibit space growth and you'll be able to charge more over time for your exhibit space. And you'll attract more exhibitors to the show.

Focus on attendee quality first, quantity second – translation – don’t just put "tire kickers" on the show floor – that’s the fastest way to make exhibitors unhappy – more so than not enough bodies.

The vast majority of exhibitors base their ROI and opinion of a show on a few questions:

1) Were the show aisles filled with people (especially on opening day of the show)?

2) Was my booth busy with attendees?

3) How many leads did I get?

4) Did I get more leads than last year's show or the last show I did?

That’s why it is critical to deliver the quantity of attendance exhibitors expect.  But ultimately, it comes down to individual exhibitors being satisfied with the number and quality of the leads they gathered at your show, regardless of overall attendance figures.

Other thoughts (Jason’s guiding principles of trade show management):

Remember common sense – put yourself in your exhibitors’ and attendees’ shoes and think of how they expect to be treated, what their expectations are, what level of customer service they expect, how easy is it to find and get information on the show's website and at the show, etc.  Make the show experience practical, personal and memorable for each attendee and exhibitor.  If you don’t, they won’t come back.

K.I.S.S. – Keep It Simple Stupid.  Don’t make things more difficult than they need to be and don’t reinvent the wheel just for the sake of change.

Remember the "5 P’s" – Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance – focus on the details, plan well in advance, have good communications both internally and externally, don’t leave things to chance, make sure every staff member and show contractor is on the same page and buys into your plan. Have every staff member take personal responsibility for executing their part of the plan.

A former mentor imparted the following statement:

“Innovate or Die”

I’ve taken his message to heart every year of our show – I ask myself and my team to strive to improve the show the following year… How can we make the show better?  What new things can we offer attendees and exhibitors?  How do we create more value?  How do we create a more exciting and memorable event?  How do we continue to grow?

This has been a key to our continued success in my opinion. We’ve always sought to make the show better by adding more educational content, more exhibits, more special events, more in conjunction groups, more networking…the list goes on.  You can’t grow if you rest on your laurels and you can’t succeed if you don’t have a vision of where you want to go and what defines success for you/for the show.

Dream, make goals, make your plans, set out on your path and work through the challenges –

Succeed!