This article, by Thomas Powers of the Chicago Tribune, questions the value of tradeshows relative to their cost. Within the piece, William Bucher, exhibits manager for Kiekhaefer Mercury Corp, surveyed 210 exhibitors at the National Food Processors show and found that 58% considered not exhibiting the following year, while 25% had already decided to drop out of subsequent events because of costs.

Sound familiar? Ironically this article was written on July 18….1971!

Since then, the options for marketing dollars have expanded exponentially and here we are 38 years later hearing the same comments. So we ask you, the customers, are tradeshow general service contractors doing enough to not only sustain, but grow the tradeshow and event industry? If not, what improvements or changes would like to see happen?

One Response to ““Analyzing the Trade Show Industry””

1. Are We Still Complaining About That? | The BusyEvent Blog says:

   11/13/2009 at 12:00 pm

   [...] The value of tradeshows, relative to their costs, was the topic of a recent blog post by Chris Valentine of the T3 Expo. [...]