Trade shows are a fragile partnership between event organizer, exhibitor and attendee. It's no secret that in the recent economy the trade show business has suffered. Trade shows that decline under 10 percent are thought to be doing well by today's standard.
Bigger isn't always better, even though it's thought to be in most aspects of life, and no where is that more true than the trade-show business where customer experience is now paramount.
In Trade Show Week magazine's latest rankings of the largest trade shows for the year, 2009 reveals that the SHOT Show has moved up from 22 to 13 despite a planned slight downsizing. I fully expect that the SHOT Show will crack the top ten for 2010 despite further downsizing due to the smaller venue at the Sands Expo.
The 2011 SHOT Show will encompass approximately 656,000 net square feet of exhibit space, down from the 672,000 net square feet in 2010. The space that opens up will be dedicated to widening aisles, adding more signage and providing more common seating areas for our attendees.
To ensure that this space is available, we are not booking any additional exhibit space for 2011 and in fact have a fairly lengthy waiting list of prospective exhibitors. For the 2012 SHOT Show we will work off a floor plan that reduces the exhibit space by another 20,000 square feet, which will again be dedicated to enhancing the experience of our customers.