An Exhibit Hall Idea to Increase Traffic

The New Exhibit Hall – With Instructions

So, the always awesome Sue Pelletier commented on my Wednesday Post about “Using Space Effectively” at your conference or meeting. That morning, I had been at the CMS Expo and the organizers put the sponsors / exhibitors in the hallway directly outside of the session rooms to increase the interaction between attendees, sponsors and exhibitors.

Sue’s comment:

I’ve been to a few smaller shows that do this, and it’s brilliant. But how to get the same sort of interaction when you have hundreds of exhibitors? Nobody has hallways that long, do they?

An excellent point she has made…and a good question! If no one has always that long, why not invent them using the rows of exhibitors that you already have!

Although tongue in cheek, this would actually work for many shows (hint hint)….and in all fairness, this is not a new idea…

If you have a show with a bunch of exhibitors that are unhappy because the attendees do not give them a look, why not give it a go?

Common Objections to this plan:

Our Exhibitors will hate it (no, you do)
This is not the way that we do it (and that is working for you is it?)
The Exhibitors won’t go for this (Really, a plan to increase traffic, you have got the pulse of your industry!)
It won’t work (yes it will, for most smaller exhibit halls and even some larger ones)
The Attendees won’t walk all the way through (Yes they will if you give them a good reason and frankly, they don’t have a choice)
The Attendees will just avoid the space (make them walk through, make it special, make it cool, whatever happened to cool)
Nope, our show has island booths and there are no islands (I didn’t say it would work for everyone, why not ditch the islands and go with a new plan, see the first three bullets)

So, without anymore meaningless words, my vision for the new/old/new again floor plan for exhibits!

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http://twitter.com/VelChain Dave Lutz
Keith, not sure I’m with you on this one. My first reaction was, “man the fire marshall will never go for this” My more important thought is…instead of thinking of exhibitors or organizers, why not design the floor around the attendees desires? Think about how a grocery store is designed. All of the fruits and veggies in one area, all the cereal in one aisle. That’s how attendees shop.
Generally speaking, exhibitors want some distance between them and their competitors. But that’s not what attendees want. It’s time more show organizers put the attendee first. If you design for them and they benefit from the experience, exhibitors will be there to get their cut of the action.
http://www.industrythoughts.net Keith Johnston
Hi Dave!
I see the point and the fire marshal won’t have a problem because you simply have exit signs and ways out, this is not the Berlin Wall we are building
I think that we could design like the grocery store, that is a 100% viable solution and one that will never fly with some* exhibitors. All of the big names want to be up near the front and when designing a grocery store, you put your most desirable items in the back (thus making the customer walk through the store).
Grocery stores are not actually designed for the customer, they are designed to get you to purchase the most amount of items on every visit, it just happens that grouping items works. Milk is in the back of the cookie aisle, there is a reason for that. Usually you will find the meat at the end of the spices aisle. If course, there are exceptions to the rule.
I think that your grocery store idea is a good one and some shows do this to great advantage (The restaurant show, the hardware show).
I think that taking this idea to its full potential would be key and you would need to put your 100% most visited exhibitors in the farthest reaches of the show hall to get the attendees to make their way through, getting their buy in that first try would be important.
Again, my idea was tongue in cheek and simply to illustrate that you really do not need to do the same thing you do every year and maybe you need to think about something other than where people fit!
http://twitter.com/tracibrowne traci browne
I love this Keith…I’ve been on this soapbox for a while now too. Check out my recent post on how we changed our show floor layout this year. We are only offering in-line and table-tops (it’s a small show) but I agree with you. Sure it will piss some of your exhibitors off but perhaps only until they see how effective it is. The important thing is to communicate with them up front and explain it is an experiment. You could also experiment with a handful of exhibitors and track traffic through the new layout vs. the old. Would love to see RFID used here to get an accurate showing.
Dave, I don’t think we can jump to the conclusion just yet, certainly not here that this is not what attendees want. I think our problem has been that we often assume we know what they want. Each show is going to be different so each show is going to have to ask their own attendees. Every show should have an advisory board of sponsors, exhibitors (old/new/small/big) and attendees.
As for the grocery store model…many shows are already doing this. Check out MAGIC http://www.magiconline.com/ and my little show. At our event we feature zones that target different demographics and interests.