What are the Las Vegas Exhibitors' Challenges and How to Deal it
We are sure you would have been on cloud nine when you got a chance to exhibit in Las Vegas for the first time. And why not? It’s the city of exhibitions and excitement.
Organizations plan months in advance to exhibit at the Las Vegas trade show, as it needs a lot of planning and a considerable budget, too!
However, to break your heart, let us tell you—not everything will go according to your plans. There will be some cloudy days when you may feel things are notgoing the right way!
And we get that totally. All the glitters that you see at Las Vegas trade shows need a lot of planning, which has its own set of challenges. But we are to talk about the solid solutions that you can implement to avoid such challenges and make your exhibition a huge success.
Discover some of the most common challenges exhibitors may face in Las Vegas trade shows. The practical solution below each problem statement will help you overcome these challenges easily.
One of the most complicated challenges an exhibitor faces while exhibiting at the Vegas trade show is complex logistics and shipping management. If not done correctly, it can hamper the timeline of the whole planning and execution.
As you have to transport various materials such as booth components, products, promotional items, and equipment to the show venue, it becomes important that you find and coordinate with the right vendors well in advance. If not done correctly, it can lead to unexpected delays and costs like shipping fees or storage charges.
Moreover, it can also delay the booth setup, leading to disrupted schedules and overall stress! If you don’t give enough attention, there may also be the risk of items being damaged or lost.
Solution: Get a Logistics Plan Right From the Start
The best way to deal with the challenge of exhibiting at Vegas trade shows is to have effective strategies for trade show logistics and shipping.
For example, preparing a logistic plan, setting up a budget, freezing the right shipping methods, choosing the correct labeling process, and defining the material handling process can help you streamline your logistic strategy.
PRO TIP: It’s best to look for rental booth services in Las Vegas that handle all the operations so that you don’t have to worry about such things at all.
If you ask any exhibitor what their biggest challenge is on the day of the trade show, they will definitely say it’s setting up and dismantling the booth. The process is quite complex and time-sensitive, as you need to assemble many components with precision. And if you fail to do it on the day of the trade show, all your investment and preparations will go in vain.
Additionally, if the booth is not set up properly, it not only represents the brand in poor light but also fails to attract a good number of visitors to your booth.
Solution: Hire an End-to-End Rental Booth Service Provider
To avoid such challenges at trade shows, it’s important to develop a comprehensive booth setup plan that includes timelines, responsibilities, and backup strategies.
Hiring experienced exhibit builders or booth setup contractors familiar with Vegas show venues and regulations can also be a good solution to overcome this challenge.
When you hire an end-to-end rental booth service provider like Pure Exhibits in Las Vegas, you can fully focus on your business activities while we plan and strategize your booth layout and installment at the trade show.
One of the most challenging tasks you may face while exhibiting at trade shows in Las Vegas is standing out in the crowd.
As Vegas trade shows attract numerous exhibitors, it becomes overwhelming for attendees to pay attention to all the booths, displays, and promotional activities going on in the booth.
In such scenarios, if you or your sales team fails to attract more number of attendees to the booth, you will not be able to create brand awareness and buzz in the market.
Solution: Get an Amazing Booth Design
The solution is simple: invest in a booth design that is visually striking and aligns with your brand identity.
When discussing your booth design with your team, ensure that you ask them to add creative elements like interactive displays, bold graphics, and innovative technology, along with features like games, virtual reality, or product and service demos, to create memorable experiences.
If you are not sure how well booths can look, you can check our portfolio for your inspiration.
The challenge that you may face after attracting visitors to your booth is engaging them with your product or service demonstrations. Imagine, how many booths an attendee can explore in a day? Very limited, right?
And in this limited time, if you fail to engage them with your booth, you miss out on a prospect - hampering your potential growth business.
Solution: Implement Impactful Techniques to Attract and Engage Attendees
As attendees have very limited time and attention spans at trade shows, you can engage them by having an eye-catching and inviting booth with interactive elements like touchscreens, product demonstrations, or trade show booth games to start the conversation and drive people to discovery calls.
Another effective way to attract attendees and create buzz is hosting contests, giveaways, or live demonstrations. Plus, train your staff to be approachable and friendly enough to facilitate meaningful connections.
Let’s be honest: how many times you felt overwhelmed or blanked when you saw huge crowd at the trade shows? Atleast when you saw it for the first time and had to manage it, right?
When you haven’t made a proper plan for managing high foot traffic at your booth, people may get overwhelmed by the huge crowd. It may lead to a negative impression of your brand in their head.
Moreover, a booth without crowd management can pose safety hazards and potentially damage booth materials.
Solution: Learn Techniques to Manage Crowds at Trade Shows
There are many ways to implement crowd management techniques at your booth. The first one is by optimizing your booth layout to mark entry and exits clearly so attendees can navigate smoothly.
Plus, train your staff on how to greet and direct attendees in the right way and manage queues. Other than that, you can also let potential clients schedule demos in advance to distribute the crowd effectively.
PRO TIP: If you expect heavy traffic at your booth, you can employ stanchions, barriers, or ropes to manage lines and control the flow of visitors.
When exhibiting in a trade show, all the business owners look at the number of leads or appointments set at the trade show. What makes it even tougher? There are many other exhibitors fighting to get appointments from the same potentials you are targeting.
Not only that, but when you fail to get enough appointments before the trade show, it results in a waste of time, money, and resources you have invested in the exhibition.
Solution: Have a Clear and Targeted Approach to Booking Appointments and Meetings
It’s not as hard to book many appointments at the trade shows when you have a clear strategy in place.
To do this, you can reach out to existing clients and prospects to book their appointments in advance. Remember to send personal invites for increased chances of successful appointment bookings.
From the data you have received from the trade show organizers, you can also identify and filter the audience that is very specific to your offerings. Once you have done this, you can contact them to book an appointment with you at the trade show.
There’s a difference between generating leads in quantity and having a bunch of quality leads that fit your criteria. Plus, the rush of exhibitions makes it difficult to evoke interest in attendees and qualify them during the event.
And if you don’t have a systematic approach to collecting leads, you may miss many qualified leads and end up getting thousands of leads that are useless to you.
Solution: Have a System in Place with Strong Lead Magnets
The best way to generate qualified leads is to offer valuable resources in exchange for attendees' engagement with your booth and the provision of their contact information (e.g., whitepapers, eBooks, product and service demos, and exclusive discounts).
You can also have games and quizzes to educate booth visitors about your services while qualifying them. Leveraging technologies like digital forms, QR codes, or badge scanners is also a good way to get accurate lead information.
PRO TIP: Develop a structured lead nurturing strategy with personalized follow-up for a higher conversion ratio.
It can feel like being on the fence when you must manage time between your existing clients while closing new deals simultaneously. We can get that totally! If you miss attending to your existing clients, you lose out on retaining and upselling opportunities, which makes them feel dissatisfied. Neglecting potential clients will also damage the future growth of your organization.
So the question is, how do you solve this dilemma?
Solution: Have Fixed Times or Dedicated Staff to Manage Attendees and Existing Clients
To solve this never-ending conflict, it’s better to have dedicated time and resources for existing clients and potential clients. If you have limited resources, you can request your existing clients to book a slot in advance so that you can give them your undivided attention.
Plus, you can teach your team about effective time management techniques so that they can handle real-life situations better.
The best way to solve this problem would be to have a booth that is big enough to accommodate lead generation activities and private spaces for meetings with existing customers.
For example, you can get 20*40, and 30*30 rental exhibits from Pure Exhibits to accommodate high footfall.
Though we all know that seeding a plant will not grow the tree alone, we forget to water them enough to grow. The same rule applies when you have to build and maintain relationships with prospects and clients.
At the trade show, attendees and exhibitors have limited time to interact with each other as they have to look after other things. But if you don’t water the tree enough, you can’t enjoy its long-term fruits, right?
Solution: Dedicate Time to Nurture Relationships
As business is all about nurturing relationships, you need to dedicate specific time to focus solely on nurturing relationships made at trade shows. Send personalized follow up messages to each prospect and take it further from there in your desired direction.
Moreover, you can send valuable content, resources and exclusive offers for continuous engagement and appreciation to your warm leads. Don’t forget to maintain regular communication with your prospects and clients through email newsletters, updates, and social media to stay on top of their mind.
PRO TIP: Leverage customer relationship management (CRM) tools to track interactions, preferences, and follow-up activities for effective relationship management.
Calculating the return on investment of trade shows can be a nightmare for many exhibitors and organizations. Many factors need to be considered, such as booth fees, travel expenses, marketing expenses, and resource allocation, to calculate the trade show's accurate ROI.
Plus, the time lag between marketing efforts and results at trade shows makes it more difficult to judge the value of one's investments.
So what would you do in such situations
Solution: Have Strategies to Measure Trade Show ROI
As Peter Drucker says, “What gets measured gets done.” This applies to trade show ROIs, too. When you set clear objectives for trade show marketing, you can measure them in comparison to the targets you have kept. These targets help you track Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) before, during, and after the trade show.
To calculate the ROI of trade shows, you can look at the total spending you have done for it and compare it with the revenue you have generated from it. Plus, you can explore some more ways to measure the effectiveness of trade show marketing.
Life is unpredictable, and so are trade shows. You may have planned your best, but still, there could be some aspects that go wrong on D-day. Think of challenges like technical errors, weather disruptions, and staff shortages as setbacks on the day of a trade show expo.
As these changes are sudden and unexpected, you have a limited time window to address and resolve them. Plus, if these situations are not handled properly, they can negatively impact your reputation and credibility among attendees and peers.
Solution: Be Prepared with Crisis Management Plans for Trade Shows
The best way to prepare for quick adaptation at the trade show is by having a full-proof trade show crisis management plan. Factors like identifying potential risks, developing response protocols, establishing clear communication channels and backup plans, and coordinating with event organizers can help ease adversities more effectively and easily.
Your effective crisis management not only reduces disruption but demonstrates your professionalism and overall resilience - showing your inner qualities.
So, let’s suppose you are exhibiting your technical innovation at a trade show; having a technical backup, like an extra set of equipment, ready can be a savior at the last moment.
By following the strategies mentioned in the blog, you will be equipped to overcome the challenges you are facing as an exhibitor in Las Vegas.
Feel free to share this post with your team members and professionals in the trade show marketing field to empower them with real-life insights.
In case you are looking for rental exhibit services in Las Vegas, feel free to reach out to our team at info@purexhibits.com or call us at +1 800-379-8451 to discuss more about it! You can also check out our portfolio to see our recent work and take some design inspiration from it!
You can collect leads at trade shows by leveraging technologies like QR codes, badges scanners, and digital forms.
If you wish to minimize the high costs of exhibitions, it’s recommended to book a booth in advance, have rental booth exhibits, and use local vendors to save on travel-related expenses and fulfill last-minute requirements.
The cost of a Las Vegas trade show may vary based on your unique situation. Still, the typical costs are associated with booth space, design and construction, shipping and handling, travel and accommodation, and marketing expenses. You can keep these numbers under control by researching and comparing prices before deciding.
During the trade shows, you can make the most of your time by developing a detailed schedule and prioritizing key activities for each day to avoid any delays and inconvenience.
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