The Show Must Go On!

             Our company was one the vendors who purchased a booth at the Eastern PA Turf Conference this past week. I have been attending this show since I was a kid back in the 80's as a crew member at Merion GC. How things have changed. It is now a table top show, which is OK. When the show was at it high mark, Philly Turf would bring over 15 pieces of equipment. As the winner of the "who gets to haul the Toro GM 580-D" every year, trust me I am not complaining. After multiple times of near death experiences towing the biggest piece we sold in the snow and ice of January, I am very happy to walk in with my box of literature in hand!
             The most important thing I have noticed is attendance is definetly up. I was not in attendance at the Atlantic City Show back in the fall but I had heard that also was better attended. For the first time in my career, I am going to attend the New England Show next month. I have always heard great things and there is a group from the Philly area going up together. Really looking forward to it.
The unanswered question is why? We have all listened to everyone in the turf industry talk about how trade shows are a dieing. As for the Eastern PA show, my guess is a good speaker line up/ strong sprayer licence credits/ replacement of attending the GIS. It will be really interesting to see how Vegas is attended.
             There are two pieces to the revitalization of the regional trade show that if someone focuses on I think they can accomplish their true goal, grow revenue! The first part is getting the word out to the non-golf turf managers. When the shows attendance was much higher, at least 50% of the attendees were municipalities/landscape contractors/School Districts. I spoke with a Public Works Director and said I will have to get back to you I am at the show in Valley Forge and his response "What Show?".
As we spoke on the phone, I got him to the PA Turfgrass website and he said it was something they would have liked to attend. The second piece is to make your vendor partners feel like they got something out of their investment. It sounds like the AC Show had the right idea, attendees had to walk through the trade show floor to get to lunch. There were a bunch of people I saw at lunch or in the silent auction area that never made it through the trade show floor. I know running the gauntlet of vendors is not the highlight of any ones day but even the walk by and wave is better than nothing at all.

WJC