Posted by
Barry Siskind
UFI’s Community Manager

Exhibitors attend our exhibitions to meet highly qualified buyers. But whose responsibility is it to bring these buyers to the exhibition? The answer, in my opinion, is that everyone plays a role in promoting an exhibition. Engaging exhibitors in promotional activities has never been more important.
Some exhibitors take their role as exhibition promoters seriously and go to great lengths to reach out to as many buyers as possible. Sadly, these exhibitors are not in the majority.

One of the ways to correct this problem is through the process of exhibitor education. No one understands how an exhibition works better than the organizer. Putting all that knowledge into the hands of your exhibitors can only help.

Another area is in engaging visitors. Recently our industry has turned to gamification to engage visitors. Last month at the 6th annual International Summer School for Trade Fair Management in Cologne, Germany, gamification expert Jan Wagner explained to the audience how games can be used to build communities. In a recent post on the livemarketing.com blog, author Kristin Veach gives three solid examples of how exhibitors successfully used gamification to increase visitor interest.
Kristin explained how Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, Intel and Smith and Nephew used creative games to engage their audience. My suggestion is to develop a strategy where you are constantly on the lookout for new and interesting ideas to promote an exhibit. Then make a habit of passing these along to your exhibitors. Do it on a regular basis to emphasize the importance of promoting their participation in an exhibition. Here’s your first link:

http://info.livemarketing.com/blog/bid/83787/Gettin-Your-Game-on-at-Tradeshows-and-Events-Case-Studies
If you find interesting ideas post them to www.UFILive.org and let the entire industry know.