Posted by

Barry Siskind

Community Manager

I went shopping the other day, walked into a large retail establishment, then after a quick interaction with their twenty-something staff, walked out without making a purchase. As I continued to walk into other stores, I was plagued by the question, “Don’t they realize sixty-something’s still have a lot of buying power?”  This got me to thinking about trade fairs?

There has been a lot of discussion over the past few months on the generational changes of those who exhibit or visit trade fairs. Take a look at your last attendance figures. Notice the attendance shift in demographics. Now here’s the key question, “What is the demographic breakdown of your staff?”  Do you have staff who is serving an age group they feel no affinity to?  Do you have twenty-something computer Geeks relating to aging Boomers? See the problem?

One solution is to continually ensure that the demographics are matched between exhibitors, visitors and your staff. Another solution is to ensure that your promotional materials, web-site, signage, etc, are written with specific age groups in mind – not everyone relates the same to your information.

While this might sound like another layer of costs to your already tightly stretched budget, I would like to suggest that these costs might be offset by fewer complaints, happier visitors and savvy exhibitors.