There can be little question that hospitality at trade shows is one of the determining factors to a company’s success or failure at an exhibition. Stroll around any major exhibition hall from the US to Asia and you will find that each booth contains some form of enticement to attract your attention and time. However, at this year’s Storage Expo, it was interesting to see how the economic crisis had affected companies’ willingness to spend on hospitality and entertainment programs.
What was immediately apparent from a brief tour of the show floor on the first morning was the level of creativity on display. Where in the past companies would have paid thousands of pounds for a troupe of magicians or gymnasts to lure you to their booth, they were now using subtler and less expensive alternatives. Symantec, for example, used its own staff to walk around the exhibition hall in bright yellow suits with placards declaring, ‘Stop buying storage’. An interesting approach considering the nature and content of Storage Expo. However, this tactic seemed to work. On each day of the exhibition, the Symantec booth was crowded and filled with a definite buzz as people sought to discover exactly what its slogan meant.
In addition to the creativity brought about by budget caps, spending limitations also force you to reassess what’s important to people at tradeshows and the two key criteria that appear time and again are:
Refreshments Internet connectivity
The former is particularly important and this has given way to a new trend in hospitality and this is the booth barista. Until recently, I had never seen a company use a barista as part of its entertainment programme but this changed at this year's Light Reading's
when I was introduced to one of the UK’s leading baristas – Daisy Rollo. Daisy has an incredible ability to lend an air of Parisian sophistication to any booth she is apart of and the coffee she makes is simply delicious.
It was while sampling one of Daisy’s lattes at Storage Expo that I realised it’s the simple things that can often lead to success at tradeshows. Freshly made coffee not only lends your booth a wonderful aroma but it also attracts people in droves. When you’re at a trade show for potentially long hours it’s hard to find a simpler pleasure than a fresh latte made by a passionate and informed barista.
Watch Daisy in action: