Trade Show Follies

This week I went to a trade show, and as always, I saw all kinds of terrible booth behavior. What astonishes me about it is that I've been hearing many of the same rules about successful show participation since the 1980s, but the same mistakes are repeated...

• Booth staff sitting in chairs looking bored and uninviting
• Booths crammed with the exhibitor's own staff, creating a wall of intimidation that prospective customers don't want to cross
• The lone staffer chatting on his mobile - don't interrupt him by asking for information about his products!

The ultimate "oh no they didn't" moment came at a very large exhibit belonging to a Brazilian company that wanted to play on their local culture. Not a bad idea, but they did this with hostesses wearing close to nothing who spoke little English who periodically took a break from talking to visitors to dance. That did get quite a crows (drool napkins, anybody?) but it's hard to think it was good for business. Most of the time their booth was just empty.

And on it goes...