Trade Show InsightsNews, tips & tools to expand your knowledge of exhibiting

There’s no doubt that gadgets and apps have taken the trade show world by storm, but just how efficiently are you using the latest tools? Here are some resources to get you up to speed.

This list of 50 apps contains some handy ones for road-warrior trade show pros, including Alfred or Fondu (restaurant finders), CardMunch (converts business cards to digital contacts), SpringPad (personal assistant), and of course two rising stars –Instagram and Pinterest.

In the last post, I told you about 100 trends to watch regarding consumer behavior and marketing. In this Slideshare presentation by Julius Solaris, you’ll likely see some things you haven’t thought about using for your events, including social ads, livestreaming, and event dashboards. And be sure to check out the list of resources at the end of the presentation for links to learn more about each of the 10 trends. There are a wealth of tools in there!

So what do you see as trends that will shape the meeting and trade show industry this year?

Technology, food, and human interactions are all included in this list of people and things that will shape consumer behavior in the coming 12 months. JWT Intelligence has released their seventh annual forecast of consumer trends, and they’ve proven to be pretty accurate in the past.

Check out the complete list on Slideshare (shown below), or view a summary of 10 Trends on the JWT site. As you view the list, think about which items you believe will influence the world of meetings and trade shows. Here are the six I choose as most applicable (not in order of importance):

Photo by MsDotty; stock.xchng

St. Patrick’s Day may still be two months away, but it’s always a good time to go green! Actually the kind of green I’m talking about is more along the lines of Earth Day — and trade shows need to pay attention.

Trade show waste statistics are staggering when you consider exhibitors ditch excess print materials, giveaways, packaging, and even sometimes part of the booth display itself. If you’d like some ideas on how you can reduce, reuse and recycle at your next show, check out this press release from EcoTensil. And be sure to check out some previous posts and podcasts on green exhibiting.

While there are a lot of things worth copying about the success of the Consumer Electronics Show, there’s one area where they lag far behind other expos.

It seems that among the hundreds of media mentions at last week’s event, there were several (including Inc. Magazine and the Huffington Post) who zeroed in on the fact that a number of CES exhibits still feature what’s commonly known as “booth babes.” This antiquated practice started decades ago in male-dominated industries as a way to draw men into the exhibit. But there are a number of problems with this strategy today, as pointed out in a video by the BBC.