In this morning’s Dallas Morning News, columnist Steve Blow makes a good case for a city coming together to earn and keep trade show and convention business.

With the northern and largest metro areas of the country either pricing or “ruding” themselves out of the business, Dallas gets a big chance this weekend to win over some of this moving business with the annual Professional Convention Management Association event. Read More...

OK, which is it?

I recently posted that the the FMI-Marketechnics show scheduled for Dallas the first week of May 2009 had been cancelled. I was almost immediately corrected (and subsequently posted a correction) by someone that the show was postponed. Read More...

I walked the North Texas Golf Show on Saturday. While this isn’t IBS or CES, it is an example of trade show marketing in action. In addition to the few random observations I’ll record here, I couldn’t resist relating my friend Melinda’s question when I mentioned I’d be walking the show:

“What does one do at a Golf Show? Watch the exhibits quietly and then clap politely for the vendors?” Read More...

When you are on the road, we all have to find the right place to light and work at times. Do you all have favorites?

Starbucks is a natural. So is Kinko’s (or is it FedEx Kinko’s or FedEx Office?). Here is a list of my favorite places to stop between tasks at a show and work on my laptop or return calls: Read More...

January has always been a big month for trade shows. Going back in my career, we had a number of shows that kicked off the year in a variety of industries. Now that I think about it, several industries anchor their years with January shows.

The National Retail Federation (NRF) is always at Jacob Javits convention center in New York City the first few weeks of January. This show started small (before moving to the big hall, it was held in hotel ballrooms and consisted of tabletops and portables) but has grown as retail has grown and changed. A large number of the anchor exhibitors are technology companies (Fujitsu, IBM, NCR, Motorola-Symbol, Oracle) as retail has become dependent on technology to target and find and define an ever-dwindling customer base. Read More...

I made my regular visit to Mr. B, the man who shines my shoes, and came away with yet another life lesson.

No, I’m not going to talk about hiring one of those shoe-shine girls for your trade show booth to build traffic. We’re going to talk about customer contact and service. Read More...

I was at a presentation today that was about communicating with your audience. Within the presentation was a discussion of how to reach the Y Gen’ers in the workforce. Thinking in threes (I like that, you know), the speaker emphasized that communication to this audience should:

1. Summarize
2. Be concise
3. Be written for scanning Read More...

It’s a proven formula: targeting and evaluating/prospecting a show in one long day. The latest example is the Heli-Expo Show in Houston.

This annual show moves between cities (including Dallas, Houston and several others). It takes up most of a multi-hall convention center, so Houston’s George Brown and the Dallas Convention Center fill up nicely. The hall is laid out clearly and fairly with the major anchor exhibitors (Bell Helicopter, Eurocopter and Sikorsky) evenly spaced at the right, left and center of the hall, with smaller exhibitors evenly patched in between them all. In other words, just because you bought a 10×10 in-line booth doesn’t mean you are relegated to the back and far corners of the hall. Read More...