Ruben Uzan, trade show performance coach and creator of the M.A.G.I.C. Exhibiting⢠Formula
Most companies who walk away disappointed from a trade show are convinced the problem was the show. Wrong location. Wrong audience. Not enough traffic. You name it. But hereâs the truth: a bad show never destroys a well-prepared team, but plenty of unprepared teams destroy good shows.
That gap, between what a show can produce and what most companies actually extract from it, is what I work on with exhibitors. Some call it: trade show performance.
I like the word, because a show is both an economic performance, and a human one, as in entertainment, act, or presentation.
The trade show expert who changed my career in Montreal
Ever watched Steve Jobs talk about connecting the dots? You can only do it looking backwards. Here are mine.
At 19 I built stands at a trade fair in Germany because I said I spoke German on my CV. Germany corrected that quickly. I built the infrastructure without knowing what was supposed to happen inside it.
A couple of years later I worked at Club Med as a resort entertainer, learning how to engage complete strangers and make them feel at home, part of the family. I did not know yet that this was the most valuable skill a trade show team can have.
I made a friend there, a jewellery business owner, and later on watched her invest in a big Paris show twice and walk away both times with nothing. Too expensive, too little return.
Fast forward nine years. Toronto. Every recruiter said the same thing: interesting CV, no Canadian experience, too much risk. Like Superman looking for a job on Krypton.
A workshop in Montreal led me to Julien, one of Canada's top trade show experts, who watched me work a room of strangers for three days and said: "Have you ever thought about working on trade shows?" I did not even know that was a job. He called me a few days later. What followed was four years on the floor with the best in North America. Then slowly the path became clear.
If you want you can read the full story of How I became a trade show expert.
When I returned to Europe, I discovered fast that what works in Chicago or Toronto does not land the same way in Paris or Brussels. Americans are inductive: if it works, repeat it. Europeans are deductive: explain why it works first, then I will trust you.
So to help European exhibitors I had to rebuild the system from the ground up. I took Julien's foundations, and layered on it research in social psychology, behavioral science, and what my training in NLP and Systemics taught me, so as to be able not only to teach what works and how, but why it works. The result is a method that can be explained, taught and replicated across cultures. I named it the M.A.G.I.C. Exhibiting⢠Formula, as a dedication to one of the founding books of NLP : âthe structure of magicâ.
The formula covers the before, the during and after of any conventions: choosing the right show, attracting the right visitors, converting eight-minute floor conversations into qualified leads, managing the team during the show, and extracting real R.O.I. from the event.
Why American trade show training does not work in Europe
The exhibiting teams I have trained, from BNP Paribas to VivaTech startups
Over more than ten years I have trained exhibiting teams across 2 continents, from large financial institutions and retail groups to government bodies and fast-growth startups.
In 2023, VivaTech asked me to teach their exhibitors as a service they give to their exhibitors. They understood more than any other show that their client's success is their success. That when exhibitors make business with their show, it grows their reputation and brings more exhibitors in the next year. Iâve run the designated startup exhibitor masterclass and on-floor coaching sessions for 3 years there until they changed their format to become more of an innovation festival.
There are two ways to work with me inside the Exhibitors Lab Iâve build.
The Catalyst is the workshop-first path: a three-day training program followed by twelve months of Q&A support. It is built for teams who want to apply for the M.A.G.I.C. Exhibiting⢠Formula on their own after we work together.
The Activator is the full partnership. I train the team, step on the floor with them, and deliver two days of live booth coaching on the show itself, first day and last day. You leave with a trained team, a recorded analysis, and a clear picture of what your next show should look like.
Both paths start with watching a presentation I called the exhibitorâs edge, that explains both the formula and what it did for previous clients.