The return to live events

Exhibitions are great. Then again, we would say that wouldn’t we. But exhibitions are a great marketing tool for your company too. We know it might have been a while since you last thought about exhibiting at one or you’ve forgotten how vital they are for the success of your business. Let’s start there…

5 ways participating in exhibitions help your business:

1. Opens the door to a new and wider audience
2. Gain an understanding of the market 
3. Face-to-face with your target audience 
4. Analyse the competition 
5. Platform to launch new products or reintroduce your brand

Virtual events are no match for the real thing

Exhibitions generate $550 billion of business sales each year, with 4.5 million exhibiting companies and 303 million visitors coming together at 32,000 exhibitions in all corners of the globe to network and do business. Granted, events of the last 18 months have been hard as large-scale, face-to-face events have been forced to postpone with digital events coming to the fore. But while digital events have been crucial in keeping us in touch with our community over the past year, we believe they are absolutely no match for what a face-to-face event can offer in terms of ROI for our exhibitors and the opportunity to discover the latest educational products for our visitors. 

When you look at the research, this is true! A recent survey from UFI, the global association of the exhibition industry shows that over 50% of both regular trade show visitors and exhibitors have experience in participating in digital events since the beginning of the Covid 19 crisis. What’s exciting, is that both visitors and exhibitors would say that face-to-face events would be their first choice when asked to evaluate each aspect of participation. When it comes to networking, both said that live events were better, hands down. For visitors, digital events can successfully deliver quality content, however 94% said that live events were the preferred choice for doing business and finding new suppliers. For exhibitors, there is also no substitute for live events. 75% of those surveyed stated that live events offer a better return on investment when compared with digital offerings.