May 2006
From the Editor: What are you afraid of?

You know how frustrating it is when you’re looking for something online and you can’t find it? You click and click and open and open, and pretty soon you’re so lost that don’t even know how to get back to where you started. Well that’s exactly how I felt last month when I was conducting some research for a story. The assignment seemed easy enough. Find the attendance for about 100 shows. I figured that I could quickly pull the numbers from their show Web sites, but I was surprised — and disappointed — to find that only about half listed attendance data anywhere on their site. And believe me, I scoured those sites. Of the 50 or so that I did find, I really had to dig for the information.

Why would you make it harder for exhibitors to find vital information that can help them decide whether to participate in your show? Are your numbers not as high as you’d like them to be? Are you afraid that your competitors will use that data against you? I hate to break it to you, but they can (and probably will) find the number — whether you publish it to your Web site or not.

In addition, I’ve heard some show organizers argue that they don’t publish the data because they’d prefer that prospects call so they can tell them the story behind the numbers. Yes, they may call, but they may be frustrated when they get to you. Isn’t the whole point of the Internet to make our lives easier?

In the b-to-b magazine industry, nearly all publications post their circulation and provide in-depth reader research on buying influence, job titles, etc. It’s pretty important for potential advertisers to know how many readers each publication offers and what those readers buy. How else are they going to compare one magazine to another? Of course, the same is true in the exhibition industry — whether your numbers are audited or not. The point is: We shouldn’t make prospects hunt for information they need to make a decision about exhibiting or sponsoring.

And exhibitors aren’t the only ones who have to hunt for information. At the SISO CEO Forum in April, Jack Powers, Director of the International Informatics Institute, walked attendees through a Web site where it took 17 clicks before he could get enough information to make a decision about coming to a show (For more, see Attendance: What works, page16). How many clicks does it take for attendees to access that information on your site?

Certainly none of us are making a conscious decision to bury information on our Web sites, but we’re not making a conscious effort to make it easy, either.