Great Business Show at Earls Court
Yesterday I was at the Great British Business Show at Earls Court and saw loads of friends. However, despite so many people attending the show it was not a success for me and, from the feedback I received, wasn’t a success for many other people as well.
What went wrong:
- To start with I had to queue for twenty minutes to get into the show and when I arrived at the check-in desk was told that I was in the wrong queue and had to join another. (I left the queue and walked in without registering!)
- Once inside I found that there was no show guide. So finding information on the location of exhibitors, seminar presentations was more difficult than it needed to have been.
- Too many of those exhibiting seemed unsure how to engage with visitors to their stands.
- More than one exhibitor was handing out very heavy (300 page) catalogues that were dumped at the exhibition because I didn’t want to carry them around London for the rest of the day
- Two events were being held in the same hall, despite being marketed separately “Great British Business Show” and the “Business Start-up Earls Court”. Very confusing for attendees
This is the second event that I’ve recently attended that I thought poorly organised, an HR event a month ago at Olympia, that had so few visitors to it that I was probably one of a couple of hundred people in the hall. Naturally the exhibitors were packing up early and I gather were “Meeting with the organisers” to complain.
I’m interested in the experience of other exhibition visitors