One of the lessons I learned the hard way was in dealing with smaller trade show operators, and may not apply to the large professionally run trade shows.
The scenario was a trade show related to an education conference. I was told that there would be a certain number of attendees in my target market.
In fact, there were only half that number of participants on the actual day. In retrospect I had not asked if these were firm numbers of people who had actually booked.
This greatly impacted on the outcome for my business. The costs of staffing, sourcing product and organization were still the same.
What I hadn't taken into account was that the organizers were very enthusiastic professional educators but had no business background.
In this setting, a trade show is awarded to a certain location and a local committee volunteers to co-ordinate this. So it may be the first time they have dealt with trade show exhibitors.
They just want to cover their costs, and don't always think through that there needs to be an ROI for exhibitors. Many non business oriented trade show organizers don't understand that just "exposure" is not enough for a trade show exhibitor.
Make sure you find out exactly how many attendees and ask other relevant questions, so that you know if the investment to exhibit at the trade show is worth it.
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