Confex at London Excel
My first exhibition in over 18 months! It was great to be back at Confex at London Excel. Usually one of the biggest and busiest exhibitions in the UK. Not this year. Visitor numbers were severely hit.
I made sure to walk around the whole exhibition space.
What I saw was fairly ridiculous!
Starting from the beginning, I was mailed my badge along with the necessary details needed in order to get in to the exhibition. There would be no handouts as in previous years but the floor plan was available to download with all the exhibitors listed. Everything was done to keep a safe environment. well done to all the organisers!
Inside Confex
Once inside the exhibition hall, it was immediately obvious this was a Confex like no other. Whereas in previous years, the aisles were quite tight with rows of companies on display, here were massive areas of open spaces. As well as spaces between the stands, there were spaces in the stands as many were empty. From talking to one exhibitor, they just didn’t turn up! Take a look at the view from the middle of the hall:
I walked around and as I always do, I looked at every stand. There were the usual mix of huge stands with suitably giant video walls and TV screens. Moderate stands with a few tables and chairs. There were also small stands with two chairs and a table. I am sure these would range from well over £10k down to £1k. So what excitement were they generating?
The Big Draws!
Visitor numbers were probably down by around 75% on what I’ve seen before on the second day of this exhibition. Having spent thousands of pounds to be at the exhibition, what was offered to pro-actively draw people in to the stands? On the whole nothing. Some sweets, pens and fishbowls for business cards were deemed “major draws”. Even if people take them, they usually don’t care where they got them.
How is a bowl of sweets on a £10k stand going to gain you new business? Spoiler alert!!! They don’t.
I walked around for nearly 20 minutes before anyone actually said anything to me. Do I have a “Don’t talk to me” resting face? No. Most people were on their laptops, reading a newspaper or talking to a colleague. The one thing they weren’t doing was looking to see who walked past their stand. Would anyone talk to me?!
Over the next 45 minutes, the number of people on a stand who said anything to me was a grand total of….. three! What is up with that? Your big colourful stand doesn’t mean a thing if you’re not interested in talking to potential clients. While I’m probably not, you won’t know that from catching up on your Facebook notifications (yes, someone was doing just that early afternoon!).
Something good
Then something amazing happened! One of the people who did stop me to say “Hi” was Joe from FanGo (www.fangocloud.co.uk). He asked how I was doing and asked if I had any use for their event management software. I didn’t so he asked what I did. I explained that I help companies to have more successful trade shows and exhibitions. As we talked, a couple of people walked past the stand. I wasn’t having that! A brief comment to them, a laugh and they came back. Easy as that! As it happened, one of the women was not happy with her event management system. Joe was talking to them as I left and on my return, Joe said that it was probably going to be a good contact for him.
It was fantastic to be back at an in-person exhibition! it could be that some companies will come away from Confex feeling it wasn’t worth the money or effort though. They may decide not to exhibit next year. What they need to do is look at what they were doing to create the business and what they could do differently next time.
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