MARCH 30, 2009

Trading Spaces With Trade Shows

Some people in the office get to read cool magazines. Kristen reads The New Yorker and Mallory reads O. The bestselling titles I read include Digital Content Producer and Videography. They are trade publications, and as a wannabe video guru, I like keeping up with the times.

So as I was reading the latest issue of Post Magazine (where are all my film editors? You totally read it too!), an editorial blurb caught my attention. It was titled,”The Changing Face Of Trade Shows” and, similar to the post Gayle wrote here on Undercurrents a few months ago, it was about, well, the changing face of trade shows (easy-to-understand title - points to Post editor Randi Altman.)

Altman writes about the expected decline in exhibitor and  attendance for NAB, the trade show for the film/video/television industry. Trade show budgets are expected to drop 17% this year. Apple is out to prove that you no longer need trade shows to debut new products and make major announcements. If strategized the right way, companies can instead turn to social media and traditional news outlets.

So what do trade shows need to do? If I had a say, I’d also emphasize industry shows as a chance to gather industry experts to interact with their peers, and emphasize educational and certification opportunities. I went to a local video trade show last year with a specific agenda - to see if there was a solution to a problem I had - and I found many answers thanks to the people I met there.

While trade shows used to be a cavalcade of the latest and greatest gadgets, that aspect of the show needs to take a backseat and find other ways to attract consumers - or else we may see trade shows fall the way of the World’s Fair: extinct.