The Consumer Electronics Show, just concluded in Las Vegas, was the largest in the history of the annual trade show conference.  Great news for those of us in the trade show exhibit and event marketing business.  Attendance was up from last year, and there were more exhibitors taking up more floor space than ever.  Given the trends of the recent past this is truly and encouraging sign, and the hope is it will be evidenced in trade shows and industry events for the rest of 2012.

At the same time, Microsoft Corporation has announced this was its last CES trade show exhibit.  After careful ROI analysis Microsoft has determined that ...

Year end creates the artificially appropriate time to fill out your annual event marketing scorecard, so here goes.  (Please rest assured this will NOT include any New Year’s resolutions!)

Smooshed!  That’s the sound you hear as the face-to-face marketing worlds and the virtual universe collide!  Maybe it’s also akin to the new “Big Bang” as the entire world is re-created into a new form of living, working, loving, communicating.  Anything really.  Very cool!  Very exciting! And full of new opportunities!

Last week I attended Event Marketer Magazine’s Countdown Workshop in New York City.  As always, I left with my head spinning and feeling a bit “dinosauresque.”  But I took comfort in realizing that few people in the room (if any) knew much about what was presented.  Most of us had the “deer-in-the-headlight” look by the end of the first session about entering the digital age for event marketers.  The takeaways for this session, however, were well worth the time spent.

I spent six plus long days recently setting up and then working a trade show exhibit.  Was the show a success?  Depends who you ask.  I survived standing on carpeted cement for 6 days, so by that measure my survival was a success.  But how about the exhibitors?  Did they walk away with results that made the collective $12,000,000 spent by the exhibiting companies worthwhile?  Do they even know?

This week has been filled with TV specials, articles and events centered around the 10^th anniversary of 9/11.  And rightfully so.  Having lived through that awful day watching the towers fall from roughly a mile away I have vivid memories of not only that day, but the following weeks and months.  I actually try not to think about it too much, but now seems an appropriate time to remember and honor those who were lost and those who carried on in their absence.

Ask any parent about the challenges of bedtime with a 4 year old and they will usually include a bedtime story as part of the nightly routine.  If they’re honest they will also admit to skipping a few pages (or trying) to speed up the process.  An attentive 4 year old will usually catch you in the act, resulting in having to go back and start again.  I hated when that  happened…

So how does this relate to a trade show exhibit or a corporate event?

Comic-Con, Wow!, what a show! Two Hundred thousand plus attendees, half in costume, all looking for as many give-a-ways as they can cram into their oversized Comic-Con carry bags.  In addition to the trade show exhibits, all crammed with interactive games, celebrity signings and of course free t-shirts, the attendees attend panel discussions featuring their favorite movie, cable & broadcast TV shows, and famous character artists.   It was a typical retail, B-to-C show.  But what can the B-to-B producers learn from Comic-Con?  Plenty!

For those of us over 50 this may recall the Who hit from the 70’s.  It’s an appropriate question today as many businesses reassess who and what they are in light of the minute-by-minute changes all around us.  I realize this is a basic question, but forgetting your identity has been the demise of many companies, organizations and even countries.

A few weeks ago I wrote about the steps involved in getting to a good design.  This week I had the opportunity to once again participate in the Fashion Institute of Technology Capstone event which involves the review and comment on the senior projects of those students in the Exhibit Design program.  As I walked around and listened to the various presentations I began to formulate what I would look for in a prospective new hire for our trade show design department.  Here’s what I settled on:

Before you set out to design your next trade show display, ask yourself the following questions...