First the good news: Companies that exhibit at trade shows still say that it’s their marketing channel of choice, according to a new report from CEIR, the Center for Exhibition Industry Research. And exhibitions still captured the same 41 percent of exhibitors’ marketing dollars in 2017 that they did the year before.
And they’re going to a few more shows: They attended a median of six expos in 2017, a 1 percent increase over 2016. They’re also buying bigger booths—the median of 100 net square feet is anticipated to increase to 120 net square feet this year.
However, spending news is not as good. Spending per exhibition is staying flat at a median of $20,000—a metric that hasn’t budged since it was last reported in 2015. When you factor inflation into that $20,000-spent-per-expo number, it actually reflects a small decline.
The “2018 Marketing Spend Decision Report,” based on a survey of 424 trade show exhibitors, is available for purchase at the CEIR website.
