Attending a trade show can be extremely beneficial for your business if you plan properly and take precautions like working with an experienced trade show company. However, as much as a trade show company can help, what ultimately creates your success is what you and your staff do when you arrive at the trade show and start working. So how many people should you bring?

The Rough Guide

An extremely basic rule of thumb to at least have numbers to start with is that for every 50 square feet of exhibit space, you should have one person available. So if you have a 200 sq ft space, you should have four staff members on hand. Of course, this is just a basic starting guide and assumes that you’re only looking at interacting with visitors who arrive as a result of foot traffic.

Your Goals

Another important factor that can impact the staff you bring to a trade show is your goals. For example, if you are primarily focused on setting up appointments and conducting meetings at your exhibit space, then you may not want to put so much emphasis on handling foot traffic. Your main goal will be organizing your appointments and ensuring you have available meeting spaces to conduct your transactions.

Show Logistics

There are variables regarding the trade show itself that will also impact your planning. The size of the trade show, for example, matters a lot. The rule of thumb is to assume that potentially 20% of the trade show’s total attendees will pass by your exhibit, and this should be divided by the duration of the trade show itself, though your exhibit placement also plays a role in this figure. So, if a trade show has 4000 attendees total and runs for 20 hours over two days, you would be looking at 40 people per hour passing by your exhibit and potentially visiting.

Your Budget

Of course, your final factor to consider is your own budget. Travel and accommodations are among the higher costs of a trade show, so the more people you bring, the more this will cost. You may be able to secure some savings by scheduling earlier flights and hotel bookings or other methods, but it’s important to calculate how much you have available for your total budget to spend on the trade show and how much you are willing to allocate into the practical logistics of taking care of yourself and your people.

If you want to work with an experienced trade show company to make sure your investment yields returns, contact Lighthouse Exhibits. We can help.