Trade shows trace their roots to the ancient Middle Eastern bazaars, where merchants side-by-side displayed, traded and bought their goods, not so dissimilar from the modern-day conventions that redefined the proverbial “business trip.”
For many exhibiting companies, year-round marketing and promotional activities culminate at these events, as they maintain B-to-B relationships with customers and suppliers and debut new products. And hopefully, strike new ventures with prospects and partners and maybe even close a major deal or two. Moreover, trade shows provide a pulse on how well or poor a particular market segment is faring.
We’ve all been to trade shows in recent years where lackluster attendance prompt exhibitors to wonder why they’ve spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to erect these massive booths and put up dozens of staff at four-star hotels for a week at a time, only to find themselves significant shortfalls in foot traffic. Is there really any refuge in finding your main competitor across the aisle pretty much in the same predicament?
Indeed, the vertical trade show in recent years has taken its lumps, epitomized by the collapse of such major events as Comdex, which at its peak attracted 200,000 attendees and occupied more than 1 million square feet of floor space. Yet by 2004, Comdex couldn’t muster enough support to keep the annual ritual going at the Las Vegas Convention Center. But that same venue this past January played host to the 2007 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) with a record-setting 1.8 million net square feet of space and 2,700 exhibitors.
“[CES] is the international meeting place; no other place can you get all the constituents together,” says Noel Lee, the company’s founder and CEO. “I really value CES as a meeting place. It reaffirms business opportunities for the year.”
Monster Cable boasts a major presence there, with more than 100 employees working four large booths and numerous private meeting rooms. The company does little advertising during the year because of Lee’s concerns over a lack of return on investment, and instead works closely with retailers on making sure that its high-end product line of audio/video accessories are merchandised and marketed properly with P-O-P displays.
For the past 20 years, Monster Cable has sponsored a CES concert with such major stars as Ray Charles, James Brown, Stevie Wonder, Rod Stewart, George Benson and Al Jarreau, the latter being this past January’s headliners.
A recent trend of its convention activity is co-branding with synergistic key partners with whom Monster Cable has run consumer promotions, such as its recent campaign with Budda guitar amplifiers.
Road Show Alternative
At least on an anecdotal level, Gary Novak, vice president of In Motion Promotions, has seen demand for his company’s special event marketing services increase significantly during that same time period, as some exhibitors determine that money previously earmarked for conventions might be better spent taking the show on the road to particular markets for promotional campaigns.
At any given time, In Motion’s fleet of 30 customizable trailers are being used out in the field for 15 to 20 different “intercept” campaigns, such as a recent IBM tour of college campuses.
“More and more companies are recognizing that they get greater value with mobile campaigns. What they spend on two trade shows they can be on the road for 20 weeks,” sums up Novak.
Trade Show Trivia
Exhibit space occupancy rates increased to 38% in 2005/2006 from 37% in 2004/2005. Halls with more than 500,000 square feet fared better: occupancy averaged 44.4%, up from 43.9% the previous two-year period, yet significantly off from the 50% achieved in 1999/2000.
Source: PriceWaterhouseCoopers
The number of convention centers increased to 458 in 2006 from 389 in 2000, and the 85.1 million square feet of current available exhibit floors space will grow to 92.7 million square feet by 2010.
Source: Tradeshow Week
Network
