Best tradeshow marketing tips and case studies. Call 800-654-6946.
Best tradeshow marketing tips and case studies. Call 800-654-6946.

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Natural Products Expo West 2022 Re-Cap

The thing I was most curious about while walking the floors and halls of Natural Products Expo West 2022 earlier this month in March was this: how many exhibitors and attendees showed up?

It was a question that kept coming up as I would turn the corner at the rear of one of the halls and instead of seeing rows and rows of small exhibits against the wall, I saw lots of empty space. Throughout the hall, instead of large island exhibits everywhere, you’d occasionally see a gathering spot with tables and chairs instead of a large island.

Which got me thinking about the final totals. On day one, I figured attendance for both exhibitors and attendees would be around 85%. On day two, after seeing more empty space, I revised that downward to about 80%.

On Monday, New Hope Network released numbers: over 57,000 registered attendees and over 2,700 exhibitors. Based on numbers in 2019 (which I’m dredging up from memory, but still, they’re close), which showed attendees at about 80,000 and exhibitors at about 3,400, the numbers this year showed a significant decline. Attendees were about 71% of 2019, and exhibitors came in at about the 79% level.

So, yeah, respectable. And people I spoke with, both exhibitors and attendees, found it a worthwhile show. Days One and Two were the best (no surprise), with all of the exhibitors I spoke with saying they’d had good conversations with a LOT of people. Day Three, of course, is more of a rush not only through the shortened day, but once two or three o’clock rolls around, a rush to the door.

A few observations:

There was a masking requirement in effect. Almost no one observed it. Maybe one in twenty. Given the pre-show health check confirming vaccinations or proof of negative tests, and the declining cases throughout the country, and of course, COVID fatigue, it didn’t surprise me that masks were mostly a no-show. Besides, with nearly 60,000 attendees, how do you actually enforce something like that?

But: QR Codes are back! If you search this blog for QR Codes, you’ll find an assortment of posts, ranging from how to use QR Codes at tradeshows, to posts questioning their validity anymore. But this year, QR Codes were back in full force. By the hundreds. I spoke with a number of people about it, and most either suggested, or agreed with the notion that one reason they’re so prevalent is that phones no longer need code-scanning apps. The ability to scan codes is built-in to the camera software. I lost count at over a hundred QR Codes.

Big Names Missing. Again, no real surprise that some brands chose to skip this year’s show. I tweeted about a handful of them that were missing: Kashi, Kettle Foods, Enjoy Life, Clif Bar, and Silk, all of which have previously appeared numerous times with large island booths. Not this year. I’m sure a few slipped my mind.

TradeshowGuy Exhibits’ client list also was reduced, but it was the busiest year I’ve ever had at the show. I spent a total of 9+ days at the show, supervising the installation and dismantling of two long-time clients, Bob’s Red Mill (30×40) and Mountain Rose Herbs (20×30). The Bob’s Red Mill exhibit is the iconic mill-like structure that captures their brand to a T. It’s been around since 2013. Mountain Rose Herbs, which hasn’t been at the show for nearly a decade, returned with a 20×30 new design focused on promoting new lines of essential oils and teas, and much more. The two main pieces of the exhibit are a 13’ tower/conference room and a 10’ tall display unit that was filled with herbs in a stratified style onsite prior to the show. It wowed. Great to work with both clients. We also had other clients at the show, including Greater Knead and Wildbrine, but like many exhibitors, some of our clients chose to sit this one out.

A few final words. I always approach Natural Products Expo West with both anticipation and a little dread. It’s a big show and can be stressful. But it’s always worth it. It was great to get back to seeing people in person, saying hello to people I’ve met over the years, and meeting new people.

And hey, there was even that celebrity siting! Jason Momoa popped in the North Halls for a short time and I managed to get his picture. He’s tall.

What’s New in Exhibit Design Search: Video

Our online exhibit-finder, Exhibit Design Search, would be hard-pressed to get much better. It’s chock-full of 1000s of exhibits, rental furniture, accessories, helpful article, photos and much more.

Yet it keeps improving. Over the last few months a few new things have made their way onto the site at TradeshowBuy.com, including virtual exhibits, interactive exhibits, protective shields and more. Take a look:


How to Find a Whole Lot of Tradeshow Marketing Tips (Video)

With tradeshow marketing on the sidelines, now is as good a time as any to brush up on your tradeshow marketing skill and knowledge. And here’s a great place to find a whole lot of tradeshow marketing tips – all in one place, and all worth their weight in gold. Check out this short under-three-minute video:

Find all of these tips at TradeshowBuy.com!

TradeshowGuy Monday Morning Coffee, March 9, 2020: Expo West and a Week in LA

Natural Products Expo West was postponed and/or cancelled a couple of days before floor doors were to open. I happened to be sitting on the airplane headed to LA for the show when I got the news.

This week’s TradeshowGuy Monday Morning Coffee podcast/vlog is more or less a travelogue of the 6 days I spent in LA and surrounding area, along with a few comments about Natural Products Expo West. I worked with clients to make sure they had return shipping handled and connected with several old friends and relatives.

Take a look/listen:

Show Notes: I mentioned a handful of folks that I encountered during the week.

Jay Gilbert interview

Paul Jackson interview

Drew at Radio.com – Entercom Radio, including JACK-FM.

Roger Steffens, author, speaker, Bob Marley historian, reggae collector (Wikipedia page)

Roger’s Instagram page: The Family Acid.

This week’s ONE GOOD THING: having a little free time on the road.

Gearing Up for Natural Products Expo West 2020

In three weeks, Natural Products Expo West will be launching in Anaheim California. It’s a show that TradeshowGuy Exhibits is most involved with of all the shows our clients go to each year. For the past couple of months, we’ve been working with new and current clients to finalize artwork, shipping and logistic schedules and more. It’s a crazy wonderful show. I’ve met hundreds of people there over the years and gained clients with almost every appearance. And of course, I’ve met people from companies that seemed to think they’d become clients, but it never happened. Maybe next year!

Schmidt’s Natural Products

The preparation for a big show for many clients goes well beyond making sure the tradeshow exhibit is up to snuff and sporting new graphics or furniture or counters or new AV elements or lights. It’s about making sure they’re positioned right with new products and services. It’s about making connections with old colleagues and meeting new ones. It’s about seeing what your competitors are launching.

It’s also about all of the details and all the moving parts: scheduling labor, electrical, shipping, flooring, furniture, you name it. There are endless details when it comes to tradeshow marketing. Handling it each year and making adjustments at the next show to improve is not uncommon.

Bob’s Red Mill

We’ll report more from the show during and after, but if you want to see how last year went for us, well, it went pretty well. I don’t think we’ll be quite as busy this year as a few of those clients are not making changes to last year’s presentations. But yeah, we’ll be busy.

I look forward to walking the floor for a few days, seeing what people are doing, talking with exhibitors, learning their challenges. I look forward to being in warmer climes than Oregon during early March! I look forward to connecting with an old friend in LA and catching up on a spare night (there aren’t many).

Organixx

But most of all, I look forward to seeing the clients we’ve worked with, whether for decades, years, or even a few months. I look forward to seeing how all of the hard work is received. It’s great to make clients look good, not only to their immediate supervisors who may not have been intimately involved in the new exhibit or upgrades, but also the clients who come away impressed with the exhibit.

TradeshowGuy Monday Morning Coffee, May 27, 2019: Josh Banks and Marie Ferguson

One of the booths I visited at last month’s NAB Show in Las Vegas was Time Lapse Cameras. They had done a good job of outreach with a couple of press releases and the follow up back-and-forth emails – and the fact that this type of tech appealed to my inner geek – I looked forward to visiting them.

Which lead to an eventual chat with Josh Banks and Marie Ferguson of TimeLapseCameras.com for today’s TradeshowGuy Monday Morning Coffee. Add to that the fact that they came away with one of the NAB Products of the Year, well, it made for a fun conversation to learn more about their products:

Check out more from TimeLapseCameras.com here:




And this week’s ONE GOOD THING is the trailer from the upcoming Terminator movie:

NAB Show 2019: A View from the Tradeshow Floor

Having never attended the National Association of Broadcasters Show in Las Vegas, I did not have a full grasp of the scope and size of the show. And once I was walking the floor earlier this week, it still took a few hours to fully comprehend how freaking big it is. There are nearly 2 million square feet of exhibiting space in 13 halls separable by movable walls.

Over 90,000 attendees showed up along with over 1600 exhibitors to see the latest in video and audio tech in all its glory: broadcast and cable TV, sports, podcasting, radio, lighting, cloud services and much more. It was all there. And it was overwhelming.

The biggest takeaways? As an old radio guy who started his career by playing single 45s on a turntable, I can safely say: we’ve come a long way (mentioning those 45s to the 20 and 30-something folks staffing the booths also was a good way to bring forth those puzzled looks along with a hesitant chuckle – yeah, I know I’m old).

Video is huge, as are the gigantic video walls, which seemed to adorn nearly one out of three booths. Quality is impressive. Cameras are going up in quality as the price creeps down. Seeing and playing with 8K cameras showed attendees what the working video world will be working with soon if they aren’t already.

Audio production, and in particular, the production of audio in conjunction with video, is a really big deal. Avid’s booth featured a large screen displaying how they mixed the music that was a part of the Oscar-winning Bohemian Rhapsody. Also there were the Oscar winners, who sat on a panel discussing the process.

Visitors also could partake in training on a large scale: Adobe, Avid, DaVinci Resolve and many others were doing full-on all-show-hours in-depth training on their latest products.

From an exhibit standpoint, I also saw something I’d never seen before: many video camera and monitor manufacturers built set and had them populated with stand-in actors. The idea was to give visitors a chance to put their hands on the various cameras and zoom and pan and see how everything worked under conditions that replicated what they’d find on an actual set.

I also saw at least three stationary cars equipped with cameras to film actors as they drove. One exhibitor went even further: behind the car there was a large video image of a road as if the car was moving. On the right and left were more screens with similar images. And for the coup de grace, a large video panel suspended over the entire car which simulated the movement of the sky, reflections of streetlights and more. An actor need only sit in the car and everything else is captured in one take, with little post-shoot work needed.

How to film a scene in a car to make it appear it’s really moving.

Lots of international exhibitors, including Europe and China, Korea and Canada among the more prominent. It seems pretty common that exhibits from China and Korea will set up exhibits with walls that enclose much of the space. I don’t see that as much from US exhibitors, so my hunch is it’s a bit of a cultural thing. I also don’t think humor passes easily from culture to culture. One exhibitor from China had a McLaren automobile on display (wasn’t really sure of the purpose, but it certainly looked sharp). As I was talking to one of the reps, I joked that maybe they should raffle off the car at the end of the show. All I got in return was confused look. Hey, I thought it was funny!

Exhibits were impressive from the big companies, and many of the smaller companies also had a good look. Although as in any show, you always see the smaller companies in the 10x10s around the edges of the main floor struggling to be seen or to even have something worth seeing. The most impressive things seen in the smaller booths were the company’s product lit up with LED, or something moving that catches the eye.

Esports had its own section, showing off gamers and gaming. We know that gaming has become a multi-billion dollar industry and if you search for esports competition, you’ll find a lot. There were panels and competitions taking place in the section, but frankly, since I’m not a gamer, it didn’t hold my interest that long. However, my 18-year old son probably could have spent all of the show in this area and it wouldn’t have been enough!

They’ve got their eyes on you!

The tech that supports radio, tv, cable and Internet was also displayed throughout the halls. Not being a tech guy, much of this was over my head, but impressive nonetheless: network, audio, video controllers; studio design and audio and video production boards, facility infrastructure, transmitters, processors, automation software, captioning AI, streaming, scheduling, logging, transcription…you name it, somebody was here promoting it.

I talked to well over a hundred people about the show, how it worked for them, how it helped create leads, sell their products. Most told me it was a great show for them. Several said this show in particular was the one show that gave them most of their good leads for the year for them to follow up on.

But not everyone agreed. One woman I spoke with said she’d been coming to the show for thirty years, and it’s not the show it used to be. One comment she made totally threw me. She said the “little Sony” booth wasn’t impressive at all. My jaw dropped because I’d been at the Sony booth (probably around 10,000 square feet) earlier in the show and determined it to be one of the top exhibits there, going so far as to walk through the booth for a minute or two shooting video to capture it all. But no, she said, “Sony used to take up a third of the hall!” She said that the networks (CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS) don’t send the people they used to, and the few they do send spend all their time behind closed doors in meetings, and don’t get out and mingle on the show floor like they used to. So her market wasn’t there to the extent they used to be. I found her perspective fascinating: no matter how much evidence you see to support one view, there’s always another view that’s just as valid.

I caught a couple of events on the main stage: opening day, NAB President/CEO Gordon Smith (and former Oregon senator) gave a keynote and ended by awarding MASH actor Alan Alda the NAB Distinguished Service Award. Alan sat for about 15 minutes after the award to chat about his career. I also caught the next morning’s panel, Tales from the White House Beat, featuring Smith chatting with ABC’s Cecilia Vega, NBC’s Hallie Jackson, CBS’s Steven Portnoy and PBS’s Yamiche Alcindor as they shared stories and insight into covering the Trump administration.

Cecilia Vega, Steven Portnoy, Hallie Jackson and Yamiche Alcindor with Gordon Smith

I was invited as a blogger which made me a member of the media, so I felt a bit of kinship with these professional journalists. I’ve been in radio news teams, hosted talk shows and been behind the microphone for decades, and it was great to hear the stories they told.

Lastly, a shout out to these folks: Josh at Time Lapse Cameras, Kent at Sharp Electronics and Suzy at FeiyuTech for their time and information. They reached out and invited me to check out their latest. Time Lapse Cameras has, as you might imagine, some great little affordable time lapse cameras which can be used to record any number of things from construction to exhibit setup and dismantle. Sharp showed off their new 8K cameras which are out later this year, and FeiyuTech demonstrated a new action camera, the Ricco, along with a handful of three-axis gimbals and other assorted goods for the video camera market. All good stuff and thanks for having me!

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