Where Can I Find Out About Trade Shows?

Tradeshows are very popular from small, local exhibitions to huge, international events attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors and providing the launchpad for new products and services for companies with the budget to afford them.  Finding out where tradeshows are taking place is a simple and easy task but this is not the obstacle that is in front of you; the real question is how are you going to narrow down those tradeshows that satisfy your requirements including meeting your budget, generating sales opportunities and ultimately profits for your business.

Back on earth, small and medium sized businesses looking to use tradeshows will find a very wide range of events that they can use to promote themselves and their offering.  Simply opening a newspaper with a decent circulation and heading to the business classifieds section is going to give you some information on what tradeshows are taking place and where in any major city or region.  In practice, we need to be a little more rigorous than taking a “hit or miss” approach as there are factors outside of the tradeshow event itself which will have an effect on our decision.

Budget is frequently a major consideration for initial efforts in the tradeshow arena (and we’ll cover that in our next post) but no matter what your budget you can make use of any tradeshow simply for the price of admission.

There are plenty of resources to help you locate tradeshows you may be interested in and your first calls and enquiries should be directed at your trade associations and chambers of commerce who will maintain lists of tradeshows in the area and in your industry sector.  The internet is obviously a great source of information as well and there are numerous listings where you can find tradeshows selected for consideration on strict search criteria.  You will be able to assess information on prior tradeshow history and data such as numbers of exhibitors, who they were and who has already booked to exhibit in a tradeshow you may be considering yourself. There is an enormous amount of business information made available, not least as tradeshow promoters like to blow their own trumpet with respect to how much business their events have generated and are likely to make in the future!

Check out some of the following which will help you to start off with:

TSNN: The Ultimate Trade Resource

Trade Show Exhiition association

TS2 Show

Before you commit yourself to exibiting at a tradeshow, take your time to go and visit several in your locality and get a feel for the convention and what is actually happening.  Specifically look for how well a tradeshow is delivering what the organizers have promised; how busy is the show? How many exhibitors are there?  Any empty slots and booths? What is the venue like - neat, clean and professional with an atmosphere for doing business?

Simply attending a show will allow you to network both with exhibitors and other attendees so go prepared and have a stack of business cards to hand.

There is no substitute for experience and using some shoe leather and atttending a tradeshow that satisfies your requirements in terms of visitor numbers, opportunities for doing business and your budget will allow you to properly assess how you will be able to take advantage of a tradeshow when you come to exhibit yourself as well as in setting realistic sales targets and marketing goals.