(AI-free post)

Today is international music day and so I’ve decided to show you a parallel between classical music and conventions.

A few months ago I was speaking with a classical music star.

She was explaining me how music was composed to elicit emotions from us.

And I couldn’t help but connect that to the emotions trade shows elicit from us too every time.

Conventions and shows are emotional

What my colleague Julien calls the event effervescence could be divided in four parts.

Like the four seasons of Vivaldi, which takes you on a journey through the hopes of spring, the heat of the summer, the bitterness of autumn and the harshness of winter, the same patterns happen at conventions.

Let me run you through them, hoping it helps you make sense of your feelings and see where you could be subject to your own emotional biases when evaluating your show participation.

Hopes of spring.

As a show starts, you will feel hope.

The hope that ‘this time we will meet the people we intend to’.

The show feels like a sweet promise of a future reward.

It still feels cold, but you expect the atmosphere to warm up as attendance grows.

Warmth of the summer.

This is when the show is at its zenith, and we hope you are too.

You can feel the air, warmed by human presence, noisy as a summer festival.

Like the summer sun giving all its energy, the people you meet, the contacts you collect feel like “this is it”.

(For my “levantine readers”, svika pick, captured this in his song, love at the end of summer).

You did well to come, it was worth spending this money, you think.

Autumn bitterness

If they weren’t too busy, this is when, If I were the show organizer, I would sell the next year’s edition. But there will be another opportunity tainted with another emotion soon…

Falls autumn, bringing with it the nostalgia of the good times and the good contacts you just had, in the (summer) heat of the show.

This is when the organizer will come look for an engagement from you for next year. After all you just tasted the best of what summer had to offer, and your body feels the nostalgia of these warm moments who just went by. You want more of them, sign here please.

You still meet people but you can feel that the best moment have passed. The tank of good emotions is depleting and so is the attendance.

Some will try to make it last by joining a few parties, but you can feel it – people are tired and anticipating the end of the show. For long shows (4 days and more), this is when some will already start packing, skipping the coldness of the coming winter on the show, usually the last day or half a day.

Winter coldness

Like tourists in Canada, some exhibitors have already taken off, not wanting to feel the bite of the emptiness of winter.

The crowd is not what it used to be, and most minds are already drifting away to “what’s next”, like a company does it’s accounting and projections for next year in December.

But for those who know how to seize the opportunities presented by this less populated and less stressed visitor population, the golden nugget might yet be at the corner, and I’m not talking about Las Vegas shows (former clients do you confirm?).

Final clap.

The show is over, and you’re left with all these emotions that still run their course, just as if you just attended the 4 four seasons of Vivaldi in concert.

The more difficult will be the after-show, why?

Because of 2 things.

1. The de synchronization between you and the people you met (you don’t share the same time and space anymore). The magic of the here, now and together is gone.
2. The emotions of being back to “ normal”. Feels boring to most after your dopamine and adrenaline was pumped up for days (or a concert). Like at a stock exchange, you have to be smart and keep your emotions in check to “buy the dip” and be bullish on your follow ups. Otherwise all would have been all for nothing.

With this little metaphor I intended to point you towards one of the biggest caveats of trade shows: emotions.

Never decide based on emotions at a show

Never base your decisions on them, and never use them to appreciate of the validity of a show participation.

That is the difference between an exhibitor who was instrumentalized by the organizer (or his own emotion) and one that was an instrument of the show success.

When you pay to listen to the artists at a classical music concert, all you have to do is sit, relax and enjoy the show. Your emotions are taken by the orchestra on a journey you paid for to enjoy. That is what visitors do. They pay and let the music of exhibitors play.

As an exhibitor you were one of the players at the show, and players should be intentional with their emotions, not subject to it, after all, you’re here to get a “ salary”, a return on the effort invested and the melody you created, not to pay to be entertained.

But If you felt like you paid a hefty price, with your time and money, for no reward, then ask yourself if you were not, after all, part of the attendance.