Fair preparation
Choosing the right fair
Ömer Faruk Süer · Senior Sales Manager · 3 min read · Last updated:
Short answer
How do you decide which fair to exhibit at?
Four questions settle it: what job the visitors do, which countries they travel from, whether your competitors and suppliers exhibit there, and how the exhibitor list has changed across recent editions. Total visitor numbers answer none of them. The most reliable method is to walk the fair as a visitor one edition before you commit, and see for yourself who stops in the aisles. That costs a year; the wrong fair costs the whole budget.
Profile, not headcount
The figure fairs lead with is total attendance, and it is the weakest input to the decision. A consumer show walked by a hundred thousand people does nothing for an industrial supplier looking for purchasing managers. What matters is the visitors’ job title, the country they travel from and whether they can sign. Organisers publish this breakdown in the exhibitor pack; if they do not, ask.
The second input is the exhibitor list. Are your competitors there, your suppliers, your customer’s customer? Line up three editions and the direction of travel shows: a growing section and a shrinking one can sit inside the same fair.
Third is geography. If your export target is North Africa, a fair whose visitors are mostly local is the wrong address.
Putting those three inputs side by side on one page shortens the decision meeting. A fourth can be added: the month the fair runs. A show that falls outside your sector’s ordering season meets the right visitor at the wrong time.
Walking it one edition early
Walking the fair as a visitor before you commit gives you what no exhibitor pack can. Which hall fills up, which aisle stays empty, how many minutes people actually spend on a stand — you only see that on the floor. The same trip lets you study the site plan: where the entrances are, which hall holds the catering, where the major players cluster.
Take three notes while you walk. First, how many square metres companies your size have taken. Second, which stand type dominates at that particular fair. Third, how products like yours are being displayed.
Those notes make next year’s brief almost write itself. We compare which type suits which job on the stand types page. Take a short form with you; notes filled in at the hotel that evening are far more useful than what you remember a fortnight later. Walk the fair on two separate days if you can, because opening day and the last day are not the same fair. Talk to exhibitors as well; most will tell you plainly whether the show works for them.
Not attending is also a decision
Fairs attended out of habit are the quiet line in the budget. If you have exhibited three years running and written "awareness" as the reason each time, the place deserves a question. Without measurement there is no reason, only a habit.
The alternative is concentrating the same budget on one large fair. In most sectors, taking a visible space at the right show beats three small stands at three mid-sized ones. That choice changes the stand type too: exhibit once and the case for reuse weakens, exhibit three times and it strengthens.
For fairs abroad, national participation support can bear on the decision. Application rules and dates run before the show, so the assessment has to happen before it as well.
When you decide not to attend, write the reason down. Two years later, when the same fair comes up again, that note saves the discussion from starting over. It also records where the released budget went. Reviewing the whole fair calendar once a year is healthier than deciding show by show.
Does a small stand make sense at a new fair?
Yes. Treat the first outing as a test: small space, plain stand, a clear goal. The second-year decision is then made on data.
Can you trust the organiser’s figures?
Prefer fairs that publish audited attendance. Where there is no audit, the exhibitor list and your own observation on the floor are the safer guide.