There is a great deal of guesstimating that goes into a launch event and I am getting increasingly uncomfortable with guesstimating. Every potential exhibitor and attendee asks, “how many people will be there?” It’s a fair question, but to answer it truthfully, I have to explain myself when giving an answer. My goal is to have 2500 highly-qualified attendees at the show and I am going to have to get at least a million impressions from my marketing budget to make that happen. But how can I be sure I’ll have 2500 attendees? Does the tradeshow industry have a formula that tells me how many impressions I’ll have to make to get that many attendees? Not that I am aware of. But I always try to under-promise and over-deliver on the attendance.

The attendance numbers bring up another issue. Everyone says they want quality attendees. Yet a few exhibitors have said 2,500 attendees is too small a show to be worth exhibiting. It seems pure quantity still overrides quality to some companies.