Tradeshow/Event thoughts

First day of starting a blog for the tradeshow and events industry.

The current economic times have put all in either a defensive mode or offensive mode.

Are those good positions to be in I don't believe either position is necessarily good for our long term growth. Now have these current economic times forced many of us to re-evaluate how we do business most definitely. However many of us should of saw some of the sea of change on the horizon before the current recession.

Some things are cyclical. In 1992 when I started in this industry everybody couldn't stop talking about audits. Now that is all of the rage. We should post accurate numbers of our attendance. Also it's important down the road track the audits of purchases at your show. This will require cooperation from you attendee base, yet this is one of the key ROI's you need to prove value to your exhibitor customers. ROI is not the first purchase but the continued purchase of products. Will exhibitors agree that the show get multiple sales credits doubtful. However if they stop exhibiting they could lose the sale to someone else down the road.

The value of the f2f is now questioned as well. So we are needing to utilize metrics to compare and contrast the cost for the exhibitors to reach x amount of customers vs. the tradeshow/event model. Now these are numbers and serve as a good measuring stick from CEIR and IAEE and PCMA etc. However these numbers can easily be tested and debated by your exhibitor base.

I believe if you have numbers that say one thing, there is a very good chance they have some numbers that say something else. Just watch politicians they make it seem like all of their numbers are correct even after they fail the litmus test of another study.

I believe everything in life no matter what you do relates to numbers. Numbers make up our DNA and our everyday life.

The question I believe we all need to be prepared to address is how we as tradeshow/events facilitate human interaction. Does it matter if it's f2f or online. I believe they need to be both however I look forward to hearing from you as well.