FROM THE INDUSTRY
Ian Nock’s Trade Show BIBLE - WARNING: SATIRE
IBC, NAB, CES, MPTS - a whole lot of shows taking place around the world every year. As someone who has been to a lot of these as an attendee, as a vendor, as an exhibitor and as someone who has presented and moderated in the conference and associated sessions over the years, I felt that there have been many improvements, but some things have not changed.... There are plenty of exhibitors who fully understood how to put together a fantastic booth presence, staff it well, run it well, make it fun, make it interesting, make it inclusive and make it super commercially successful. However, there are some who still do the opposite, who let themselves and the industry down. Much of the following is said in jest, but with a serious underlying message... particularly for the bad behaviour that I would see companies censured for or forbidden from engaging in our industry until they can be the inclusive, engaging company that they should be.
Use ‘dolly birds’* or non-functional staff on your booth, because they really sex your B2B product up by looking like the backing singers of a Robert Palmer video. It is also disappointing when the organisers of the show don’t have an effective way of dealing with this. Ensure your booth is not welcoming by putting a sign up that says ‘Invite Only’. Run a defence team at all entries to your booth and interrogate everyone before allowing them on the booth, as a lead pre-qualification. Even if they dared to come near your booth, ensure that all eyes from that defence team are on those who are approaching, showing all the suspicion of a guard team armed with a machine gun. Make sure your booth is as closed as possible, so that no one wants to cross the threshold. Don’t allow time wasters on to your booth - those students will never join the industry, become an engineer, a manager, a director, and then a VP / CTO who would make future decisions about your product selection when running their RFP... Ensure your booth is not welcoming by filling it with too many staff and other hangers on eating their very expensive cheese sandwich lunch.
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MARCH 2025 Volume 47 No.1
61
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