The Future of Exhibitions: How can organisers and exhibitors work together to ensure our industry thrives?

Organisers and exhibitors. Two sides of the same event coin that often don’t see eye to eye but rely on each other to deliver on their business goals.

For exhibitors especially, event costs are going up, but their budgets are not, and with extra scrutiny on where marketing teams spend their money, it’s not a surprise that event marketing spend (an average of 18.8% of offline marketing budgets and the largest spend across all channels – Gartner CMO report 2022) is now firmly under the microscope.

In fact, Explori research (in collaboration with The Exhibitor Advocate and EXHIBITOR Magazine) tells us that a 3 in 4 exhibitors feel pressures to cut costs, with 94% expecting some level of change to their programs over the next 3 years. As exhibitors try to square flat budgets with soaring costs, the pressure to cut costs is coming from senior leadership, with one in four exhibit marketers telling reporting their C-Suite do not see the value in trade shows.

As an industry, we know that exhibiting is a critical part of marketing strategy, and one that should continue to be invested in as a place to meet new and current customers, improve brand perception and drive business growth. But exhibitors can’t need support to help make their case.

So how can organisers help?

Understanding the challenges that exhibitors are facing is an opportunity to support their customers. By helping them to be more successful and guiding them on how to prove the value of their exhibition participation, they can help exhibitors protect investment in this channel and in doing so, help the entire event ecosystem to thrive.

Trade Shows success when there is a symbiotic relationship between organiser and exhibitor, and it’s down to collaboration from both sides to ensure the future of this industry is strong and sustainable.

In a world where the exhibit programs find themselves in a more vulnerable position, how can exhibitors make sure they are effectively defending the position of their exhibit participation? And what can organisers do to support them? Most importantly, how can the two groups work together to ensure our industry thrives?

Join Richard Kensett and a panel of corporate exhibit leaders and trade show organisers as they share insights, discuss actionable next steps, explore what exhibitors need to justify spend in a world where budgets are smaller and understand what steps organisers are taking to support their customers.

Expect to learn:

• They key challenges facing exhibitors today
• How exhibitors can defend their spend and participation at exhibitions
• What data exhibitors should be collecting to defend their position
• What organisers should do to listen more effectively to the voice of their exhibitors
• How organisers are helping their exhibitors be successful