We just got back from a fantastic trade show called Inpex. Known as America’s largest invention trade show, this Pittsburgh based show brought in several thousand attendees and hundreds of exhibitors. We had traveled to many a trade show, but this was the first one where we actually hosted a booth. To get people to stop by our booth, we took pictures of them in a giant light bulb hat. We’ve posted the pictures from the invention show on our website and MySpace page and our IdeaTango Photo Gallery under Community.

For those of you inventors or entrepreneurs deciding whether to host a booth or not, here are some things to consider:

- Hosting a booth will get expensive. I’d say triple the cost of the booth space itself, and that’s a good estimate for how much you’ll spend on the whole trip. You need to buy equipment, print banners, hire someone, UPS anything too large to carry on the plane, etc.
- That said, the decision to host a booth should come down to how many conversions can you get per $ spent. If you just visit a trade show, yea it will cost you less, but you may only get 50 names. If you host a booth, it may cost you a bunch, but you may get 300 names.
- It also depends on your personality. If you visit a show, you’ll have to walk up cold turkey and make your pitch to anyone that will listen. If you have a booth, you will still have to grab people out of the aisle, but you’re more in control because you have the booth and they don’t. So if you’re a people person, either way is good. But if you’re, hmmmm, let’s a say less of a people person, maybe a booth will be more natural.
Those are some thoughts I thought would be helpful to trade show newbies. Stay tuned because next time I’m going to write about a great reality TV show I found last night (and it’s not American Inventor).

Bryan Daigle