Why Your Expo Hall Shouldn’t Be All Sponsors and Exhibitors

I’ve been talking to a lot of people who feel resistance to adding experiences on the expo floor. They don’t want to give up sellable space. I get it. We need to make money.

But here’s the thing.

Expo floors used to be just about exhibitors and about selling. In fact, we used to provide tight aisles and not give people places to sit so that they wouldn’t sit down , we wanted to force them to talk to exhibitors!

Those days are gone.

No one is going to go into an expo hall if it’s just about selling. If so, they’re going to go to a specific company or two, then bolt.

Let’s not do content here and selling here. So, the expo hall needs to be an extension really of your event.

Make the expo hall a vibrant hub. Create hubs of community. I named my company Blue Plaza Events because I looove the concept of a plaza, a central place for community to happen.

Let’s get back to money.

Here are 3 reasons why you need to incorporate other experiences and what it will do for your event and for your bottom line.

1. You can use these various spaces to push people throughout the hall. Let’s be honest, we all know that people aren’t going to visit those 10×10 inline booths in the back corners, right?
2. People need to work, they need to relax, they need to eat and drink. Bring that into the hall, will keep attendees there longer, rather than having them look elsewhere for these areas.
3. As we all know, connection is what people are looking for right now. Use the expo hall as a hub for those communities, to give people that connection, that true feeling of belonging that they’re looking for. This is good business.

This will all help bring in money, as sponsors and attendees are happier.