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!
