* Physical trade shows vs. virtual events
I spoke at Inbox-Outbox in London last week and found the event, where I had spoken in 2005 and 2006, to be quite good. Attendance was in the several hundreds each day with a relatively small number of exhibitors. The venue itself was quite nice, located in central London near Covent Garden, and the content of the presentations I attended was very good, as was the quality of the event’s management. Like Inbox, held each year in San Jose, this show combined both an e-mail technology and e-mail marketing focus.
Despite the quality of the Inbox-Outbox event, I wonder about the future of trade shows in general. It’s clearly quite fun to visit London or Las Vegas or New York and schmooze with your peers at these events, but do the events provide enough bang for the buck? This is by no means meant to disparage any of the events that we go to each year, but in an era of ad hoc Web conferencing, the abundance of quality Webinars that provides lots of product data, Web demonstrations and the like, are all of these events really necessary? Given the low attendance at some events, it seems that many people don’t think so.
Clearly, there is value in many of these events, and the ability to meet prospects in person is of significant benefit. For attendees, there is a lot of benefit in having actual hands-on access to new products, and seeing things work in person, rather than on a computer screen, has some definite advantages. However, given the quality of the many online events that can impart much (but certainly not all) of the same information, but with much greater cost and time efficiency, is every event you go to the best use of your time?
I would like to hear from both vendors and attendees about this if you can spare a couple of minutes to share your thoughts – please drop me an e-mail with your views.
