Trade Show Crowd Control
What stops you from attending trade shows?

I'm writing this page after just returning from PAACE, the big automotive trade show in Mexico City. It is truly the liveliest show I have attended in my more than 20 years in this industry. I have been to SEMA and AAPEX, tool shows, tire shows, program group shows, regional shows and national shows. This show has energy to spare.

What makes a show successful in the eyes of the exhibitor is quality traffic. This means there must be visits by the larger distribution groups, parts store owners, major retailers, and shop owners and technicians like you. While a lot of dynamics factor into getting show traffic, most shows do pretty well at getting the suits from the distribution groups and retailers, but fail at getting the guys who work in the shops and stores every day to leave their job and go to the show.

The PAACE show had a nice mix of the right people. To get the right mix you need a lot - and I mean a lot - of shop owners, technicians, counterpeople and students in automotive programs. These are the people who crowd the aisles, ask the good questions, touch and feel the new products, take the trinkets and show genuine interest in the exhibited products if they think they're good. If they don't like them, they will walk on by. This is where the trade show turns into a live human research project, where the all-important, one-on-one communicat...