Trade show win
A few years back I was asked to accompany my boss to a trade show. Being a R&D man I was asked to remove my pasty, nerdy visage from the lab and explain some technology to potential investors/customers.

If you have never been to a trade show before, its like a cross between a church jumble sale and the apprentice. A big building rents out a large indoor space where stalls are to be set up. Meanwhile anyone interested in what we have to offer can come along and browse. There is a huge pressure to get results from trade fairs as you have sometimes shelled out thousands of pounds to set up your little stall there.

Huge amounts of time and effort go into preparing your little booth, with large display models, glossy handouts, attractive actors paid to hand out business cards, plasma screen TVs showing custom films of your product etc. All of this is basic corporate flair, shiny things to attract the suited magpies of venture capital. Being from a small company we were pretty screwed when it came to competing with the big boys.

After buying the booth, what amounts to the right to set up a couple of tables in a large room, we were left with about two hundred quid to make up a good show. Most of the two hundred going on train tickets to that London, where the trade show was taking place. With the change from that we had to compete against the big league of people like BP, KPMG, TESCO, Microsoft, DuPont, EDF energy and the like. It was like if your five aside team in the park had to qualify for euro 2012.

Thanks to my bosses cunning plan though we 'won'. We got more interested parties attending our booth than any other. How did we compete against the titans of industry we were up against?

Simple, the day before the show I was sent out to buy a goldfish bowl and enough quality street to fill it. This was kept on our table in prominent view, forcing people to talk to us if the wanted some chocolate.
( willenium Fist bump for verification, Sat 7 Jul 2012, 10:58, 9 replies)

I like this!

(ConanTroutman thought we would free the vulture, Sat 7 Jul 2012, 14:10, closed)

haha the power of chocolate
I was expecting tits
( Dick Wonder ₐ wₒₙₖy, wₐᵥy wₒₙdₑᵣ, Sat 7 Jul 2012, 15:03, closed)

haha
Yeah I was expecting more models, always seems to work at the Earls Court IT shows I have had to attend....Doesn't always mean their going to buy anything though.....I have always found bouncy balls for the kids a major pull.....No idea why.
(bROKEN aRROW PUA HVI Master, Mon 9 Jul 2012, 11:03, closed)

come to the dark side...
we have candy.
(gearanach #wankwankwank, Sat 7 Jul 2012, 18:18, closed)

Absolutely.
I saw this done at a computer games software show called ECTS year ago. Some twatty game company filled a plastic waste paper bin with Cadbury's Mini Eggs. It caused a riot.

By midday there was just one knackered, chipped, mostly unshelled, melty egg left. It had been touched by hundreds of unwashed hands that morning and looked like the last turd of a very sick rabbit. Then it was eaten greedily by a fat programmer in a black t-shirt with a robot on it.
(judgetheobscure used to sweep in butchers' shops., Sun 8 Jul 2012, 9:06, closed)

"a fat programmer in a black t-shirt with a robot on it"
...describes pretty much everyone sitting around me right now.
(moon monkey is busy making memories worth repressing, Mon 9 Jul 2012, 12:25, closed)

Free sweets?
Looks legit.
(ThatNiceMan thought he was being funny, Sun 8 Jul 2012, 20:44, closed)

I've been to trade shows,
most are fucking boring, so I end up seeing which booth has the best give-aways. If it's chocolates, they have to be Belgian or Swiss, if I going to waste my time wasting their's by pretending to listen to their pitch.
(the other guy not the one that gave you coochie warts, Mon 9 Jul 2012, 2:04, closed)

I sometimes work with
the family biz, which involves surfing gear.

Last year we went to a trade show and were on the stand of our biggest biz partner. They had a reasonably efficient method of getting people to their stand:

www.alliancewake.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/IMG_1454.jpg
(username failed moderation, Mon 9 Jul 2012, 9:27, closed)