Going to a trade show is expensive! Airfare, hotel, cabs, meals, martinis, massages, it all adds up. And it’s time-consuming too. All that hurry-up-and-waiting when you’re traveling. Standing in lines, sitting in cabs and buses, waiting for room service, etc. But can’t I accomplish the same thing sitting at my own desk “attending” a virtual trade show? They’re great! I can get the info I want and not have to leave my office. So why go to Orlando? (Or as we call it in the trade show industry: Central-Florida-Not-Set-Up-For-Business-Airport-Too-Far-Away-Screaming-Kids-Tourist-Prices).
But we humans are pack animals, well, except for C++ programmers. We like to be around people. We like to get out and mingle and trade ideas with our colleagues. But is it worth the $600 airfare and all hassle of traveling? Can you get the same quality of information and interaction when your interacting face-to-face as you can half-listening to one of the virtual trade show sponsors wrapping a self-serving infomercial around some Wikipedia data? What? Biased? Me?
But virtual events and webinars allow the attendees to multi-task, or as we call it, “half-paying-attention.” And they also have that level of personal contact that you can only get from a disembodied voice. And studies have shown that you’re only missing out on 55% of the potential communication when you’re not face-to-face, that’s not too bad.
With everything that’s available to you on your computer, you really never have to leave it. All the information you need is just a search away. But you know what? People are starting to crave human interaction. Yes they are. They won’t put it into those words, but their desire to go to Orlando (ugh!), Las Vegas (ouch!) or Chicago in February (brrr!) is rooted in basic human needs: We like and need human interaction. We understand the value of it even though we can’t adequately communicate it to the bean counters when we’re trying to justify attending a conference or trade show. We know we need to have face-to-face conversations to test our ideas, to evaluate other’s ideas and to foment human relationships.
We like the spontaneity of real-time conversations. Texting or emailing just doesn’t do it. We like the witty banter and quick exchange of conversational tidbits that are impossible over the tubes of this Internet thing. We crave human interaction. And events and trade shows are focused on enabling human interaction.