It’s summer and festival season is here.  Events are big business with over 87 million people attending trade shows, conventions, & conferences; while 32 million people attend music festival.  Some annual industry and market stats:

• Trade shows, conventions, conferences
  • Number: 284,600 annually
    • There are 248 convention centers in the US with a total of 56.29M prime exhibit space.
    • The majority of conventions (21%) have 1,000 – 2,499 attendees
  • Participants: 87,728,000
    • Average attendee spends 8.3 hours viewing trade show exhibits
    • 81% of trade show attendees have buying authority
• Music festivals, fairs, and other festivals
  • Number: 1,413 annually. Music festivals alone total over 800 annually
  • Attendees: Over 102 million people annually. 32 million people go to at least one music festival annually.
    • Attendees spend on average, $207 a year on live music events and digital music/streaming
    • 1/3 of all festival fans go to more than one festival per year
• Farmers’ Markets
  • Number: +8,400 markets that convene regularly
  • Attendees: 310,800,000
    • Farmers’ market shoppers spend a mean dollars/week was $25.38
    • Shopper visit an average of 6.12 times/month

What It Means To You

Events are targeted.  So attendees are in your market, many in your target market.  Renting a booth, depending on the event, can be fairly inexpensive.  This is an economical means of raising awareness for your product/service for the following reasons:

1. You are not locked into a commercial lease contract
2. Can test the viability of your product/service
3. Get targeted market feedback

Some of what you may need depending on the event:

• Mobile merchant services such as Square
• Email collection method
• Banners and booth appeal
• Ready-for-market product/service
  • Or compelling marketing materials (videos, images, samples) of your product/service.

Read more about festivals and marketing.

Contact us to see what strategy works best for your business.