Invisible Attendee - MAYA Design

The Invisible Attendee
What Your Attendees Are Thinking
(and Why You Should Care)

A WHITEPAPER


Contents
Executive Summary ..........................................................................................................3

BACKGROUND.............................................................................................................4

What Do You Really Know About Your Attendees? .........................................................4

What Did We Ask? ..........................................................................................................5

FINDINGS .....................................................................................................................6

Wayﬁnding ......................................................................................................................6

Activityﬁnding .................................................................................................................7

Information Community ...............................................................................................10

Common Areas ..............................................................................................................10

Communications............................................................................................................11

Exhibitors.......................................................................................................................11

Technology ....................................................................................................................12

People ............................................................................................................................14

RECOMMENDATIONS .............................................................................................15

Communicate ................................................................................................................15

Connect .........................................................................................................................15

Explore ...........................................................................................................................15

©2008 MAYA Design, Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

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Executive Summary
Attendees form an impression of a show based on the number and quality of exhibitors and
other attendees, the “buzz” around the show, and whether at the end of their experience
they’ve achieved their goals and gained enough value for their investment of time and
money. If a show does not meet their expectations, attendees vote with their feet and wallets
by not attending the next show. (They also vote with their mouths, telling others about their
experience.)

We found that although shows do a lot of measuring, they do not work hard enough to
understand the goals and motivations of attendees and recalibrate their shows to ensure that
they address those goals.

Some well-known companies are already exhibiting at fewer shows and shifting portions
of their marketing budgets to corporate events or ways to form direct connections with
customers. For example, an Apple spokesperson told MacWorld magazine, “Apple is
participating in fewer trade shows every year, because often there are better ways for us to
reach our customers.”

That trend and others are putting pressure on trade shows. Energy and environmental
concerns alike will raise costs and expectations for efficiency. The quality and capability of
online tools and environments make face-to-face encounters less necessary.

In addition to the narrow and small-scale improvements organizers make now, organizers
need to find better ways to help people connect. Those who have a stake in the long-term
viability of a show should understand how it fits into the information community of their
attendees and provide value in the form of authentic connections that alternatives cannot
replicate or substitute.

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BACKGROUND

What Do You Really Know About Your Attendees?
Organizers employ a number of tools, techniques, and consultants in an effort to analyze
attendees. These can include simple counters on entry gates, to time-lapse footage from
cameras installed in the ceilings of the venues, to high-tech chips embedded in badges that
allow real-time tracking of an exhibitor.

The output of these measurements is typically positioned as analysis, but is actually not
much more than raw reporting of numbers in highly segmented categories in both large
and excruciatingly small detail (e.g., “Number of first-time male attendees with 10+ years of
professional experience who visited Vendor X on the first day of the show.”) These reports
come in the form of spreadsheets full of numbers and PowerPoint presentations full of tables
and colorful graphs.

Organizers presented with reams of this data might think they have really studied their
attendees and can make better decisions about upcoming shows based on this data. In many
cases they’re right. It can be helpful to have statistics that compare trends from one year to
the next. But as we argued in our companion paper about the exhibitor experience, “The
Invisible Exhibitor,” even with proper analysis such, quantitative information can go only so

Figure 1. A trade show isn’t an isolated event. It’s an ecosystem that is
successful only when all of its complex parts function together well.

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far and does not readily reveal deeper motivations or thoughts
Behind the Research that might provide a more direct view of where attendees’
thoughts are headed for the future.
MAYA Design studied and documented
the exhibitor experience over a six-month
Because of this, some organizers supplement their information
engagement co-funded by The Expo
gathering with focus groups or similar opportunities for
Group. MAYA did not set out with a formal
attendees to voice their opinions. Most sessions are guided,
plan to study attendees at the same time, and the results can be interesting, yet artificial. What people
but as part of building our understanding say out of context does not always correspond to reality.
of the world in which exhibitors operate,
we included a smaller number of By speaking with attendees in the context of their activities, we
conversations with attendees. This took can gather richer and more accurate information confirmed by
place almost completely in face-to-face our own observations. Organizers should consider information
conversations at two major trade shows they have gathered by other means incomplete without in-
run by different organizers and general context qualitative research to complement it.
contractors in two different cities. At no
time in our conversations did we mention
The Expo Group as a co-sponsor of our What Did We Ask?
Because we did not originally set out to research the attendee
research. Our findings about the attendee
experience, we had no formal plan or approach to our
experience helped to inform our primary
interactions with attendees. We did, however, establish a set
research about exhibitors by filling out
of focused, but open-ended questions to work from so that we
the picture of how a show functions as
had a consistent approach:
an ecosystem. Our research that involved
attendees was not exhaustive, so neither • Did you make a plan of attack for what you wanted to
are the findings included in this paper. do at the show?
• What would you want the show organizers to know
about the experience of being an attendee?
• Are you aware of an RFID system in use? If so, what
information do you think is being tracked? What do
you think about it?

No matter what their detailed responses were, we found some areas in which most attendees
share some commonalities:

• Valuing their experience at the show as “protected” time. Even attendees who can’t
ignore their day-to-day work and devote attention to it periodically during the day or
every evening after the show found it helpful to be in an immersive environment that
consumed most of their attention.

• Seeking a return on their “investment.” Attendees arrive at the show with something in
mind regarding what they expect in return for their investment of money and time. To
make sure what they’re providing meets the expectations of attendees, organizers should
talk to a cross section of attendees regularly to understand their motivations and goals.

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FINDINGS What is an “Attendee”?
The deﬁnition of “attendee” isn’t
Wayﬁnding always clear. On a simple level, it is a
First impressions of attendees (or anyone walking through the person at a show who is not there in
door of the show) are greatly affected by the quality of the physical another singular capacity (e.g., as an
arrangement of the show and the signage that simultaneously exhibitor). But organizers who lump
identifies, advertises, and directs. Wayfinding missteps will not their attendees under a single label
make or break a show, but they cause attendees to question whether (e.g., “They’re all radiologists!” or “They’re
organizers have their act together. all geeks!”) risk overgeneralization.
Organizers can make better
We visited one show that had aesthetically beautiful wayfinding
decisions about tailoring a show by
signage that violated some fundamental requirements of such
understanding what motivations
signage. For example, in one large communal area of the venue, the
people have for being there, and how
ceiling height was so high that signs identifying a particular area
those motivations are affected by such
were too small to read at a distance and too high overhead to read or
notice when close up. factors as:

It can be a complicated task to coordinate wayfinding in a physical • Experience: Attendees who are
environment with program materials (e.g., schedules and maps) veterans of a particular trade show
that are often locked in and printed well in advance of the show. (or trade shows in general) will have
Attendees are usually oblivious to that temporal disconnection a level of expertise necessary for
and they are puzzled when they encounter mismatches, such as a navigating the complex experience
schedule in a printed guide that does not match what is posted on that an attendee who has never
a doorway to a room. Some of the largest trade shows print and been to that show (or any trade
distribute daily publications that help to update attendees about show) lacks.
changes, but wayfinding signs that have been modified (as simply as
a presenter scribbling the number of the relocated room on a piece
• Job roles: Executives, managers, and
of paper and taping it near the door) are usually the fallback means
software developers (to pick one
for updates.
example) will all approach a show
Introducing a human into the mix is one of the most effective ways with different goals in mind, which
to connect attendees to their destinations. Well-positioned help affects how they plan their time
desks staffed with knowledgeable people can be the quickest way for and how they evaluate whether a
a confused attendee to get back on track. show meets their needs.

Organizers planning wayfinding schemes (or who work with • Trade show roles: Some people
contractors who do) should anticipate spatial and temporal might be there as passive
“breakpoints,” or barriers and gaps in experience, and make quick, attendees, whereas others are there
simple prototypes to test ways to bridge them. This prevents errors in an active role directly related
before they happen, and saves costs by ironing out problems before to the show (e.g., as a presenter in
an expensive, full-scale wayfinding system is built and installed.
an educational session), or in an
active role indirectly related to the
show (e.g., as a reporter for a trade
magazine).

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Figure 2. People can provide very effective wayﬁnding services, but only on
a person-by-person basis. This desk was staffed with two workers, one behind
the desk and one out in front—he’s the guy gesturing and pointing. He would
physically turn people and give them a little push in the direction they should
go. Organizers should talk to such helpers before the show to clue them in on
highlights they think attendees might like to be aware of, and after the show to
learn what the most common or most troublesome breakpoints were.

Activityﬁnding
Whereas wayfinding connects people with places, activityfinding involves the tools and
processes necessary for connecting people with what they want to accomplish.

How individual attendees differ in handling this depends on their personality more than
anything. Some make detailed plans before arriving and further manage their time at the
show every step of the way. Others make no plans before the show and decide what to
do once they arrive. One attendee we spoke with spent an hour in the morning carefully
plotting out his activities for the day.

At some point most attendees wondered something like, “I have 40 minutes to kill, what’s
the best way to spend that time?” Although schedules abound in pocket guides, on signs
posted next to rooms, and in common areas, attendees had a difficult time actually figuring
out what options to choose next. The range of options presents such an impenetrable thicket
that an attendee would rather get a coffee instead.

Attendees suggested that it would be helpful to have “dashboards” at crossroads and common
areas in a venue. Such digital signage could combine wayfinding (“This way to Session A”)
and activityfinding (“8 seats open”).

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We did encounter a type of digital dashboard at one show, but it hindered more than it
helped. It was intended to inform attendees about the status of educational sessions, such as
whether a class was fully booked or not. The display consisted of columns of course numbers
encoded in different ways to indicate the status of a class. Attendees registering on-site for
classes would first page through large directories of information about educational sessions,
find something of use or interest to them, write down the course number on paper, then
walk over to a digital display to see if what they had selected was still available. The design
of the interface made it nearly impossible to see the status of a class at a glance. Attendees
would switch back and forth between the digital display, their registration forms, and the big
program guides, never quite able to put together a satisfactory package.

This on-site registration experience felt broken to attendees, especially when they talked to
others who had registered online before the show and had no obstacles doing so. Some of the
attendees attempting to register on-site looked longingly at nearby Internet terminals, but
show workers told them they couldn’t register for courses online while they were on-site.

We also encountered attendees coordinating their plans with other attendees. It was difficult
for them to share their schedule with someone else or align two or more schedules.

Figure 3. These two attendees were trying to ﬁnd an activity that they
could do together. The one on the left had registered for one previously
and was looking up his registration information on his PDA, trying to
match it to what they were looking at on the board.

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Figure 4. Attendees registering on-site at this show would have to
look through phonebook-sized program guides, identify courses of
interest, write down the course numbers on a registration form and
then . . . see that plasma display in the background . . .

Figure 5. . . . the attendees would have to go over to that display and try
to match the numbers they had written down to the numbers shown on
the screen in hopes of determining whether or not their chosen courses
were still available. Unfortunately, this still image doesn’t show the scrolling
display or the ﬂashing numbers that further confused attendees.

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Information Community
Related to activityfinding is the issue of forming connections. That might sound vague, but
it is the primary reason for most attendees to be at a show, which serves as a convergence
point for an information community. Show organizers must do everything they can to
provide opportunities for these connections to happen. Wayfinding plays a small role in this
and activityfinding is certainly a component, but supporting and nurturing an information
community is a distinctly different effort.

We found that show organizers devote attention to their information community, but in a
disjointed way. They employ technology or processes that are dropped into place without
making plans for an integrated experience or understanding attendee needs as a whole. The
following are some areas in which we found opportunities for improvements.

Common Areas
The simplest way to foster connections is to provide areas in the physical environment
designed to support them. This might seem like a no-brainer, and some of the larger venues
certainly provide plenty of space that functions as gathering zones or neutral areas. Most of
the time, these common areas are unplanned or overly planned—such as meeting rooms
set aside for salespeople. After we completed our work with The Expo Group, we happened
to be at another trade show where we saw common areas done perfectly. Carefully planned
setups of modular furniture in common areas made it possible for attendees to reconfigure
them at will to support all kinds of interactions. We recommend that organizers work with
contractors and facilities to plan this part of their physical environment as much as they do
the exhibit floor and areas for educational sessions.

Figure 6. A common area done right with modular, ﬂexible furniture.

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Communications
No show experience would be complete without attendees receiving, along with their
show badge, a bag stuffed (or ready to be stuffed) with marketing materials. Organizers
depend on it as a sponsorship opportunity, and exhibitors arrive with boxes and pallets of
marketing materials intended to go home in the bags with attendees. Organizers that have
really worked out the whole chain of sales opportunities even make sure attendees find more
bags of marketing info waiting for them at their hotel room every evening if they booked
the room through the show. From the perspective of the organizers and exhibitors, a lot of
communication is happening. From the perspective of attendees, they’re getting spammed
right and left. Some attendees we spoke with did make an effort to go through each piece in
their pile and look for things of interest to them. But most attendees felt burdened by the
sheer volume of material and by the large percentage that did not apply to them. Judging not
only by this feedback, but also by our own observations of waste, organizers and exhibitors
alike are spending a lot of money on inefficient communication. Attendees would welcome
some other alternative.

Exhibitors
Attendees told us that they felt like they were wearing big targets on their backs, or like lambs
led to the wolves in terms of their interactions with exhibitors. They felt like the quality
of those interactions was low due to the staff in the booth primarily focused on capturing
contact information about the attendee (a.k.a. lead retrieval) and because of lingering
hucksterism still evident on the floor. Although attendees might be attracted and entertained,
they are not satisfied with what they are able to learn or accomplish with the current
model. Organizers also do not provide much to support the scheduling of appointments for

Figure 7. Exhibitors often abandon piles of leftover material after a show. Is this
evidence of how ineffective and inefﬁcient their communications are?

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meetings or better discussions, so that largely happens accidentally or when a salesperson has
scheduled appointments outside the context of the show.

Another interesting issue that became evident in our conversations was that attendees and
exhibitors alike were dissatisfied with how difficult it was to filter out the “product noise” to
find truly new and innovative products. Of course, almost every exhibitor with a product
would argue that they have something new or innovative, but attendees were frustrated that
there was a lot to look at and evaluate on the floor, and they had a difficult time figuring out
what was worth their attention.

This was partly because smaller, innovative companies can afford only the least expensive
booths, which tend to be in unfavorable locations, and partly because the points system
rewards large or long-time exhibitors. The result at one show was that a group of long-time
exhibitors selling a particular type of product that was rapidly becoming obsolete in their
industry had prime positions at the show. We heard from attendees that they happened upon
an exhibitor with a particularly innovative product only by accident, and we heard from that
exhibitor their frustration about getting buried at the back of the show.

One solution that organizers could consider, and which we heard favorable comments about,
would be to have a distinct zone on the show floor devoted to small innovators.

Some attendees said it could be helpful to have a qualified and neutral selection committee
evaluate and designate their selections of notable innovators or innovative products at the
show. This shifts the burden of filtering through loads of information away from attendees.

Technology
The largest trade show we visited augmented standard “you are here” maps with computer
kiosks that attendees could use to search for exhibitors by name. Attendees told us that the
kiosks were somewhat useful, but fell short of ideal. For example, one attendee was looking
for a product that had a specific name, but he did not know which exhibitor made or
distributed it, and the kiosk could not make that connection for him. Although the kiosk
interface could show the floor location of a specific exhibitor, an attendee couldn’t select
a group of exhibitors or a sequence of exhibitors and view a map highlighting just those
exhibitors. The kiosk interface also did not allow attendees to look up an exhibitor that
handled a certain kind of product, and then see all other exhibitors that handled similar
products. Finally, although listings for individual exhibitors included company contact
information, once the attendee was “at” that exhibitor in terms of that page on the kiosk,
they had no way to contact the exhibitor directly right there. All contact information led back
to company headquarters, not to their representative(s) in close proximity on the show floor.

There was a similar lost opportunity for connection in the larger sense of how an attendee’s
experience at the show related to their larger professional and personal life experience.
Organizers typically treat a show as a standalone moment in time. Some are beginning to
make audio and video recordings of sessions available online following a show, but what
people can do with those is still rudimentary. For example, some attendees were sent

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as representatives from their organizations, and they had a responsibility to carry back
information upon their return. Aside from their own notes and collections of marketing
material, it was not possible for them to assemble a collection of experiences in sharable
format, such as selecting a subset of session recordings and adding notes or commentary
tailored to co-workers.

Some organizers provide a way for presenters to post materials online following a show, but
there is a lost opportunity to continue a dialog online following their presentation. We’ve all
seen people descend on presenters following particularly good sessions, but then the room
has to clear for the next one and the dialogue peters out. Sometimes people exchange contact
information and a few e-mails, but a good dialog that was forming in that room during and
after the session is lost.

We were also curious about RFID, or Radio Frequency Identification—a way to uniquely
identify people via a tiny strip of metal that can be sensed and registered at fairly close range
by special sensors. We were interested partly because it is getting more attention as a tool for
capturing detailed information about attendees, but also because every attendee badge at one
of the shows we visited had an RFID tag embedded in it.

Almost no attendees we spoke with were aware that their badge contained an RFID tag,
despite large signs notifying them of the presence of RFID. The show organizer also told
us that when attendees registered, they had been presented with a similar notice as part of
their registration agreement. A few of the attendees who became aware of the RFID tags said

Figure 7. RFID sensors placed overhead on entry gates to an exhibit ﬂoor. The
sensors are more than fancy people counters because they don’t just record how
many people passed through the gate. They can also record who passed through
and when they did it.

13


it did not concern them too much, and that it was the way the world was going. But most
attendees expressed frustration or anxiety for reasons that, real or not, included:

• Feeling like they had been tricked into being tagged, despite all the notices about it,
which they had not noticed.
• A sense that now all of their movements were being tracked.
• Loss of control over their personal information.
• Exposure to more spam and marketing information.

Examples included an attendee who occasionally visited the booths of job placement
agencies, and he worried that his current employer might somehow find out. Another
attendee worried that highly personal information, such as how many times he went to the
bathroom, would be exposed.

Many attendees said they would be fine with an RFID tracking system if they could only
control it better themselves, such as “turning it off” at certain times, or being sure some
aspects of their personal information remained hidden or unavailable to exhibitors and
analysts. One attendee said that she would “take care of the problem” by simply printing
a new badge for herself on a color printer—that the guards at the gates of the show would
never notice the difference and she would have peace of mind to come and go as she pleased.

RFID tracking systems can give organizers and exhibitors (and even attendees) extraordinarily
detailed information. But this is a developing technology with as many dangers as benefits.
Organizers should implement it cautiously, and transparently, keeping attendees as informed
as possible. Organizers should also encourage RFID vendors and analysts to develop
interfaces and controls to allow taggers and those tagged to better manage information and
privacy.

People
Many attendees go to a trade show individually, yet almost all attendees are there in
conjunction with someone or to meet someone. We encountered attendees who were there
as co-workers in groups of two or three to take part in a mutual, rather than individual
experience. Some attendees were there to seek out peers so that they could exchange
information about problems and solutions they had encountered in their professions. Others
went just to be near experts.

All of the information-community support mechanisms noted above exist to make it more
likely that the high-quality, high-value connections attendees seek will actually take place.

Personal connections are one of the primary ways attendees assess the value of their
experience at the show, yet they are one of the least understandable or measurable. Organizers
should work this into their own assessments of the success of their show, and they can start
by understanding the goals and motivations of attendees.

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Figure 8. Attendees are looking to connect with other attendees and exhibitors.
Organizers provide a trade show that functions as that point of convergence, but they
have an additional responsibility to help make those connections happen easily.

RECOMMENDATIONS
Organizers should take a big-picture view of their role in the lives of their attendees.
Expectations are high, short-term risks are low, and the impact on long-term survival is large.

Communicate
• Aim for better, higher-quality communications with attendees, not just more of them.
• Use dynamic, real-time information displays that help bridge breakpoints and keep
attendees aware of what they can do next.

Connect
• Provide opportunities for attendees to make authentic connections with people.
• Break down real and artificial barriers between related information.
• Understand how the show fits into the lives of attendees.

Explore
• Experiment with new ways to achieve the goals above by making prototypes or
approximating the experience, and test them with attendees before committing to a
costly full-scale rollout.
• Prevent waste by aiming for efficiency and optimization.
• Understand what’s changing in the world outside your show and develop a long-term
strategy for providing value that exhibitors and attendees can get no other way.

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MAYA Design, Inc.
2730 Sidney Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15143
412-488-2900
www.maya.com

MAYA Doc. No. ExpoGroup–08007, Rev. B

Invisible Attendee - MAYA Design

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