#licensing16

Booking space as an Exhibitor at the Licensing Expo:

So, you have decided that you want to exhibit at the Licensing Expo... exciting!!! 

Let’s talk about the process of booking and a few things to take into account.

The big guys book space 1 year in advance, well, they have tonnes and tonnes of money, and they want to ensure the best location of their behemoth booths... good for them! Are you playing that game? I don’t think so!!! (And if you are, that means you are rolling in cash, so please check my contact details, I am open for further investment :D)

So neither myself (at least right now), nor you (I suspect), can afford to freeze that amount of money so far in advance (sure, it’s just a deposit, but it still hurts!)... and you know what? It doesn’t matter.

If you are an artist selling designs and patterns, you will end up in the Art & Design section (where you can get tiny booths at a cheaper price) and where you will find available spots no problem just a few months before the show. However, I honestly think that the traffic there is not very good (based on my walks around the show).

The cat is thinking: “Damn! I should have gotten a booth on the Brand & Entertainment section!” :D

Now, if you are a small brand (as we are), and you want to License your characters, then the Brand & Entertainment area (which is the main area of the show) is the place to be, and there, for your booth size (smallest is 10ft x 10ft), regardless of when you book, you are going to end up with all the other small brands that book last minute, that is in one of the sides of the hall.

At this point, you might already have searched online on how to choose the best spots for a booth, yes, I also did when I started this tradeshow routine. Guess what? It’s going to be useless. You are going to end up with locations that most people would say are either bad, very bad, or awful.

However... Is that true? Based on our experience this year, not really! We got a lot of traffic! The meeting rooms were just behind us so there were a bunch of top executives walking through the area and they installed a food area next to us so we had tonnes of traffic also during lunch time. And guess what? People know that brands must start small, so those seeking what’s up and coming, looking for the next big thing, won’t be looking for that on the Main Hall, they will come looking for you right there!

Of course, one thing is having traffic around and another thing is driving leads to your booth. It is your job to be visually attractive enough to make people notice you and stop :)

So, how far in advance to book? We booked about 4 months before the show; initially we were forced to get a location in the last line of booths because they had many reserved ones more towards the “center”. However, suddenly many of those reserved ones opened up and we could move to a nice corner booth 2 rows closer to the main action (still on the outskirts but hey, a bit closer!). Sweet!

In fact, it seems they could not fill all the booths opened to small companies, so the show ended up deleting the whole last row and everyone moved a bit closer. So you see, there’s space for everybody, don’t fret!

That being said, if you have taken a decision and see a relatively nice space available (and you have the cash available), move fast! They can hold it for you for a few days before you make the payment, so don’t leave for tomorrow what you can do today.

Now about the cost, it was upwards of US$4,000 for 100sq ft. And that includes... well... nothing, just the space, concrete floor and the air on top of that... not even a poor carpet! If you are US based maybe that comes to you as no surprise but I am used to the Hong Kong Licensing Show, where HKTDC (the organizer) makes the small exhibitor life extremely easy and offers very nice standard all included deals for basically the same price as getting just the space (which only big companies prefer so they can build their custom exhibits).

In Vegas Licensing Expo you can also get “turn-key booth” solutions “kindly” offered by GES... but you need to sell your kidney to afford them, and they are so basic, and limited, that well, its not even funny.

So you booked the space... Now what?