The Case for Virtual Exhibitions

Story time…

I was at a trade show years ago presenting new technologies that my then employer had developed. If you’ve ever had to man a booth, especially for a smaller company, you’ll know how stressful it is to build and tear down a booth. You have to carefully package and ship all the equipment you want to exhibit in a crate, disassemble once arrived, build equipment on show floor, tear down and carefully package in the crate again before shipping back to your office. As a Sales Engineer attending multiple trade shows a year, I would dread this process because it always left me with back pain and hand bruises.

One day, it clicked! Why can’t all this be done virtually? Companies can exhibit more content and save money in the process. Attendees can conveniently visit more booths and interact just like they would in person. Trade show organizers will attract more traffic locally and internationally. With the whole show floor having a virtual representation, the possibilities are endless.

This idea can be extended past trade shows and exhibitions. Any business or individual with a following can have a custom environment to interact with their consumers. It could be an artist looking to share a new project or NFT with their hardcore fans or it could be a product manufacturer looking to introduce new technology in an immersive way.

This idea has been marinating in my head for some years now but I’ve had to place it in the parking lot because the world was not ready for mass adoption of VR. With the advent of the Metaverse (Meta’s or Facebook’s VR offering), I feel its time to give this another go.

I created a business case presentation that i’m going to share below: