Managing delegate etiquette

As a company we – Connect Events – don’t exhibit at many shows.  The main reason for this is that the ones best suited to us usually take place during our own busy times, one example of this is Confex running during the same week as eWorld Purchasing & Supply – a show we manage on behalf of Revolution Events.  The other reason is that as an agency we find a number of shows are more suited to those offering individual services, i.e. Audio Visual, Stand Building, etc rather than those offering the whole event management service.  We did however exhibit at the recent Event & Exhibiting Show, which took place at the Business Design Centre recently.

The whole experience was definitely worth while from my point of view, regardless of number of leads and worthwhile chats generated.  To be honest in terms of business likely to be generated through our presence at the event we are talking very little – probably a handful of potential leads over the two days.  I haven’t seen final delegate numbers yet but I feel the lack of leads is more down to the aforementioned point of delegates attending being more interested in sourcing one individual event element rather than looking for an agency to manage an entire event.  Given we were next to a busy stand builder and registration company this seems to be the case.  However another possible reason would be that a large number of the delegates that attended were more interested in selling their own product / service than listening to what we (and others) were there exhibiting.

In fairness to the organisers of the Event & Exhibiting Show stopping this happening is somewhat harder at an industry event than it is at some of the events we organise where those attending are from a different side, i.e. end users attending to see resellers (as is the case at Sage Software events).  In the case of these events we simply don’t let delegates enter if they are a potential exhibitor – if you took that approach to this event you would have no (or very few) delegates.  However I do feel the organisers could have made a greater effort to explain / manage delegate etiquette.  It is frustrating when you are constantly being sold to by delegates, especially so when you consider that the exhibitors have paid to attend whereas the delegates are there for free. 

As mentioned before it is hard to manage for an industry event where the delegate / exhibitor difference is often quite vague.  There should be, without question, a strong message conveyed to all delegates both on registration and arrival that the open selling of products and services is forbidden when talking to exhibitors.  I would continue to allow and in fact encourage it during open networking, such as the drinks reception and general coffee breaks during the day.  Clearly event industry shows work, otherwise they wouldn’t attract the numbers that they do.  However I do feel the Event & Exhibiting Show needs to work on managing delegate etiquette and behaviour if it is to become the second large industry event in the UK (after Confex).  Perhaps moving toward the hosted buyer programme utilised so well by shows such as EIBTM and IMEX – this may initially increase costs but it would definitely improve the exhibitor experience.

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