Are Trade Shows Dead in 2020?

I will admit I think for a lot of industries trade shows are very important. I have experienced in past years working with clients how important a trade show is to developing client relationships. Presentation is everything in these circumstances.

However, for the craft fairs it is a much different climate. I think some of these independent trade shows may not exist in a few years. They are not progressive enough about using digital media to their benefit. I experienced exactly this when I exhibited this last year for the first time. This trade show did not even have an Instagram account or a Facebook page!! Can you believe that?

I talk about this experience in the video and what I would do different. There are 3 main points to take away from this experience. 1) Always research the venue. 2) Know your audience really well so you can pick out the best venue to exhibit and 3) Always check out the venue’s social media accounts. It will give you a good idea if they are putting money into marketing your work. You will have a great idea if you’re going to make any money at the event or if you will lose money. In this instance, we lost money because the venue didn’t market anything on social media. We found out every year the event was declining.

Why? They weren’t taking advantage of social media. I took it upon myself to creat hashtags for the event and posted content to my social media channels. Other exhibitors were thankful because I tagged them. It created a few valuable relationships between myself and other vendors. This can lead to future collaborations. However, the venue did not even post a list of vendors on their website. There was no way of knowing whose work yours would be hanging next to. It’s so important in this day and age to be familiar with digital media marketing and best practices. I’m always surprised when a big company relies entirely on traditional email list marketing.

Anyways, it was a great learning experience. Leave a comment below if you’ve had a similar experience or if you agree/disagree?

If you’d like to view more of my work, you can find it on Instagram.