What A Show!

What a Show! A week later and I am still blown away at how incredible the 26^th Annual ISPE Boston Area Chapter Product Show turned out. I know that it sounds like an overused trope, but this year’s Show was the biggest and best ever. Starting with the morning networking breakfast to the infamous After-Party, the Show delivered for both attendees and exhibitors alike.  There was so much going on, there was no way to experience it all. I myself was unable to visit key parts of the Show this year like the educational sessions, the Innovation Stage, the Career Fair, and …. the shrimp display . Fortunately the sessions were recorded and will be posted to the website soon (stay tuned for the announcement), so I’ll be able to check them out from the comfort of my home (I’ll just have to bring my own shrimp). There were many people I tried to connect with that I just was not able to get to in the limited amount of time (Sorry about that!); perhaps it is time to expand the Show to two days? What do you think?

So where to start with this recap? Well the numbers are always a good place. This year, we had 3,325 people walk through the doors; an increase of 281 attendees from last year. As a result, the aisles were crowded and even a little tight, but we are addressing that for next year as I will explain later in this post.

Who were the attendees? Over 73% of the attendees were there to view the exhibits and were seasoned professionals. More importantly, 39% held a management-level position with responsibility for at least one plant location—the demographic that we aim to increase every year.

Most attendees came to the Show to keep up with technological advances in the industry while significantly, 15% of the attendees were “shopping” the Show to support upcoming projects for companies with annual revenues from $1 million to over $1 billion.

 

The Show drew a wide spectrum of attendees with varied roles from their companies showing the broad appeal the Show continues to enjoy.

Over 68% of attendees have some role in the buying process. And they were at the Show buying a wide variety of products and services.

And the After-Party was huge as well. We handed out 800 attendee t-shirts and we estimate another 200 came through the door after we ran out. By comparison, we had about 750 attendees at the after party the last couple of years.  The numbers don’t lie. The Show was a success! And everyone I talked with, including all of our first time exhibitors, agree.

So what about next year? Well, there are big changes coming and if you read the previous blog post, you already know about them.  But to recap, the changes include:

• Date change – the ISPE Product Show is moving to September! The next show is Wednesday, September 26, 2018.
• New Show Schedule – the plenary session will no longer be held at the Product Show and the Show doors open 1 hour earlier at 10:00 am.
• New Floor Plan – major changes to the floor plan were implemented to improve attendee flow and to allow for a dramatic increase in the number of booths available to exhibitors. I think that everyone will agree that the new floor plan is more open and inviting and one that really encourages attendees to visit every exhibit.
• Educational Sessions – we will soon be issuing a Call for Presentations. This is a new approach for the Show and this is your opportunity to present on a topic that you are passionate about. Keep an eye out for the announcement.

If you exhibited this year, you received an email with your unique code to reserve your spot for the 2018 Show. If you didn’t exhibit this year, you can reserve your spot after 12 pm EST on Wednesday, October 18, 2017. Don’t delay. The Show sold out many months in advance this year and we are well ahead of last year’s pace at this writing. We had over 30 companies on the wait list last year and I won’t call out the many people who called me directly asking if there was some way to get their company exhibit into the Show. Don’t procrastinate!

And whether you were an exhibitor or an attendee, we need you to complete the post-Show survey – a reminder will be going out today with the link, so please give your feedback if you haven’t already. It should take you less than 5 minutes to complete. Your opinions are crucial to the success of future Product Shows and as you can see from this post, we really do take the time to understand the data generated by the surveys to guide how we develop the Show for future years.

Finally, if you would like to talk about ideas to improve the Show or are interested in joining the Product Show Committee and help implement those ideas, please contact us at office@ispeboston.org.