June 2007
Cheat Sheet: Taking your trade show public
Tips for planning, managing and marketing your business-to-business show to a consumer audience
By Linda C. Chandler
When mixing trade with public events makes sense
• Your event has created media buzz that arouses public interest.
• Your trade show focuses on products of interest to consumers (electronics, sporting goods, etc.).
• Your Web site gets lots of inquiries about public participation.
• Consumers try to gain access to your show by presenting false credentials, business cards, etc.
• A substantial number of current exhibitors are willing to display and sell to the public, or a potential field of related exhibitors is interested in direct-to-consumer sales.
Scheduling considerations
• Can you hold a simultaneous event, using badges, wrist bands or some other method to distinguish public from trade attendees?
• Can you use the same trade show staging but designate specific check-in areas or separate hours or different days for public vs. trade participation?
• Are you better served by totally separating the events in different halls and scheduling them either simultaneously or over consecutive days?
Pitfalls to avoid
• Be sure trade show exhibitors and attendees will not believe their event has been “hijacked.” Create enough exclusivity to ensure you don’t lose their participation. Some shows do this with “invitation-only” activities and special receptions.
• Avoid confusion in branding. Be sure to distinguish public vs. trade events on Web sites, ticketing, etc.
Site and space issues
• Public shows will generally require more parking and more security to accommodate crowds.
• Public shows generally entail more food vendors and more seating.
• Increasingly, trade shows are providing space for private meetings to conduct business on a larger scale, and time is important, while public shows generally focus on smaller, across-the-counter transactions or information gathering, and the pace is more leisurely.
• Children are usually restricted from trade shows but welcomed at public events. Exhibitors may have to tweak their booths by providing more brochures or by removing candy dishes, fragile samples, etc.
How to market a consumer component
• Public events generally rely on advertising in local newspapers, magazines, radio, television and billboards. Campaigns can be expensive, but you can defray costs with media sponsorships for trade advertising and public relations.
• Traditional advertising should push potential attendees to the Web to inform them about details. Offer online ticket sales and online reminders, so that you can capture e-mail addresses to build your attendee database.
• Do a media push for each event. Reporters for the business page, as well as the lifestyle section, may find stories, depending on how you pitch them.
Linda C. Chandler is a freelance writer and editor based in Tyler, TX. She has written for association and convention publications for 19 years and is an active member of Tyler CVB’s tourism committee. Contact her at linda.chandler@earthlink.net.
More on EXPOweb.com
Rules of thumb for producing consumer events
• Although you may not want the public in your retailer attendees/wholesaler exhibitors trade show, encourage trade attendees and exhibitors to get insights about the market by visiting the public show.
• Make the most of cross-attendance. Exhibitors and attendees from the trade show may be willing to sponsor or lead workshops for the public event.
• Most of our sources use the same team for planning and managing the operations of their trade shows and public events. But unless the public and trade are truly integrated, the events usually run on separate budget lines for accounting purposes.
Find links to these related archived EXPO articles:
Best Practices: Launching a public event at a trade show, May 2006
Best Practices: Jumping the line (Online ticket sales for NY Auto Show), January 2004
The allure of the B2C event market, September 2005
|
