What does the future of trade shows look like to you? All in person? All virtual? Perhaps hybrid forever? Scott Tiner writes about what he thinks the future of trade shows holds and what we can do to improve that future.
During the pandemic, there was a decent amount of discussion about the future of trade shows. Predictably, these theories ranged from “they would go fully virtual” to “they spring right back and be just as big as before.” I think that those who predicted a spring back to the “old days” were closer to the truth. In fact, I think that if you look at most things that changed through the past few years, you will witness a slow return to how it used to be, as it is really difficult for people and traditions to change. However, I also think and hope that while many of the standard structures of the trade show stay the same, I also hope that some things will change.
Over the past decade or so, I have been rather lucky to have the opportunity to observe and understand the state of audiovisual and videoconferencing environments across various organizations. For the most part, things work pretty solidly. At least for users. But beyond that, most organizations that I have seen have never really taken things to the “next level,” or, while they have taken steps in that direction, it’s not been a huge goal. The problem with the next level, however, is that there is no real consensus on what that looks like.
