I’ve been thinking a lot lately about an offshoot of my Chicken or the Egg post from a few days ago. What is the best way to attract exhibitors to a launch show? Should one work hard to line up a marquis sponsor so that competitors and other industry players will come [...]

Most of the posts at Tradeshow Startup will focus specifically on the business of tradeshows. But along the way, I’m sure I’ll feel compelled to comment on business in general, like I do now.
In the past week, I’ve contacted four websites about advertising on their pages. In each case, I’ve either filled out [...]

A PR representative from CNET contacted me a few days ago about having one of their writers speak at Podcast and Portable Media Expo. It is a writer I actually follow so I knew of him already and I was interested in having him at the event.
Today I was told that they decided not [...]

Launching a new show is hard as hell for a variety of reasons. I’ll be talking about these reasons often here. The toughest part about a new tradeshow is getting those first few paying exhibitors and sponsors to come on board. It is the quintessential “chicken or the egg” problem. Each [...]

I haven’t had the best experiences with PR firms or individuals. I’ve tried it three different times with three different individuals and each time at the end of the contract, I am utterly unable to quantify the results. Now to be clear, I’m not talking about marketing help - I actually put that [...]

If I learned only two rules from the failure of my nanotechnology event launch, they were:
1) as a show organizer you must be passionate about the topic of your tradeshow, and
2) you must be able to speak intelligently about the subject to anyone who is an expert in the field (ie, your exhibitors, [...]