Trade shows have been a staple of marketing since long before the internet, and Microsoft Team meetings, were even imagined. Experiential marketing plays a key role in strengthening bonds with customers in both the B2B and B2C space. It allows for the intangible human connection to flourish, and organic brainstorming and collaboration that has led to some of the most innovative ideas in business to come together. Conferences and trade shows were, and still are, a gathering place of industry experts, celebrity speakers, students, and vendors. It is an often overlooked 15-billion-dollar industry that unites businesses from across the world in one place.
However, everything changed in March of 2019 when the Covid-19 pandemic started to ramp up and businesses had to adapt, conducting their operations virtually out of necessity. The “hybrid” conference model had been a relatively new concept in the trade show space limited to scanning badges with your phone on the mobile app and perhaps online chat rooms for the most advanced services. The Covid-19 pandemic expedited this digitization process. Traditional methods of communicating and networking needed to be entirely reimagined to adapt to the new hybrid conference landscape. For conferences and trade shows who had long standing brands established, some for over a hundred years, it was vital to find a solution that would maintain the culture these associations had worked tirelessly to cultivate. Was it possible to replace and replicate the face-to-face human connection? Could the same engagement be seen and encouraged among attendees in a virtual space? Moreover, how could various associations protect their long-standing brands virtually?
Seemingly hundreds of third-party firms rose to answer these questions. Many exhibit floor management platforms, where exhibitors could traditionally upload their physical presence on a mobile floor map and conference websites, pivoted to host video capabilities as well. These ranged from simple list views to massive virtual trade show experiences with 3D floor plans allowing an attendee to navigate through their browser or mobile app as if they were there in-person. These offerings ranged from tens of thousands of dollars for something as simple as a list view, to hundreds of thousands of dollars for fully flushed out 3D events with 24/7 support and chat rooms.
However, these platforms failed to capture a satisfactory percentage of the same experience attendees and exhibitors had in-person. At first, virtual conferences and exhibits garnered a similar attendance as physical shows, primarily by virtue of trusting the association’s brand to deliver a somewhat analogous conference experience. Many exhibitors were willing to test whether it was worth the investment to exhibit virtually, and many exhibitors reaped a disappointing ROI. It is worth noting that few did find success but usually only through external marketing and vigorously advertising themselves in chat rooms. Many had no attendees organically “step” into their booth (enter their open zoom room.) It quickly became apparent that virtual trade shows were a temporary solution until everyone could convene in-person once again.
Virtual conferences were not without their benefits though. The other side of the coin allowed exhibitors to join the program who would never have considered marketing at that conference previously, usually due to pricing or geographic constraints. There was also often a widened audience, sometimes 1.5-2x of in-person events, including those who could not travel to attend the event in previous years (though bringing with them less engagement overall than the fewer attendees at in-person shows). Now that Covid-19 vaccines and testing options have been made widely available trade shows are back in full force. Everyone in the conference and exhibit community, from management agencies to businesses to attendees, are better for it. However, the remnant of the virtual option remains and is now a larger part of the experience than it ever had been before. There may even be a change to the feasibility of online platforms achieving a more satisfactory replication of true human connection through the Metaverse or augmented reality. However, for now, the intangible value of face-to-face interaction will not be completely replaced any time soon.