The exhibit hall at any large industry conference is one of those places. In it, the interests of three different groups of people meet, intersect, and sometimes, unfortunately, clash.

When it comes to numbers of booths, the color of the carpets, how much to charge for what size of booth, etc., that stuff is the science. When it comes to managing expectations and meeting the needs of the disparate ’shareholders’ as it were, that is the art.

I’ve been to many, many exhibit halls in many markets, as speaker, presenter, event host (too many times to count) as well as just plain attendee. It’s really magic when both the art and science of the hall come together and I can tell you that it’s harder to achieve than it looks. For the most part, it’s the art side that gets neglected.

Here are some tips to increase your chances of knocking it out of the park:

(1) Let it flow.

Traffic is essential to making an exhibit hall hum. At best, the hall takes on an ‘electric’ aspect, and people wander through not just to ‘check out the booths’ as if ticking off an item on their ‘make the conference worthwhile’ checklist. They go back to the hall because that’s where the excitement is - like the midway at the carnival, the cafeteria in the office building, or the commercials during superbowl. If the talks and presentations at a conference are the bones, the exhibit hall and the flow of traffic in and out of it are like the connective tissue that make the bones work.

As such…make sure the hall itself is in the middle of all the presentation rooms.

This can be tough because some of the buildings these conferences are held in weren’t designed with this in mind. An attendee has to trek a long way away from their next breakout to even get near the hall. Don’t hold your conference in that venue if this is the case. The exhibit hall will fail.

Also…make sure all the doors (entrances/exits) etc. are wide open to the hall. All of them - don’t force people to squeeze through one half a set of doors - they’ll leave.

If you must have security at the doors, make sure it is friendly and unintimidating for attendees to get through. Even better, ask why you have to have security in the first place. Unless you actually have a need for a metal detector, isn’t more people going into the hall better than fewer? Let them in, for pete’s sake, let them all in.

(2) Add value. In doing so, come to embrace the ‘commerce’ side of exhibit halls.

Too many conference organizers are scared of promoting their exhibit halls for fear of being too commercial. They are what I call purists. They want the event to be educational. They want to receive accolades as to the content of the conference. A worthy goal, to be sure. And, once again, information is only information - what if you look at the exhibit hall as a place to add value over and over information?

Add value to the exhibit hall experience by:

- creating places for people to interact with speakers, through signings, sure, but how about q&a sessions, hot seat coaching or demos, like the ginsu knife demo at the home show?

- offering a range of options for food, right in the hall. attendees don’t always want to have to sit down at the moment the conference schedule indicates, in order to fuel themselves. get creative with food offerings - making it easy, inexpensive and integrated with the exhibit hall experience…people bond over food, big business gets done over food, the right food and water in the right spots can transform an entire conference and exhibit experience.

- offer places for people to interact with each other. organize through similar interests, but ask for accountability and action to be taken…emphasize more active involvement on the part of participants. use experiential exercises to surprise attendees out of passive learning mode. this brings the material in the conference to life.

- integrate the five senses - ask attendees to diagram, fingerpaint or record on audio/video, what their experience has been that session/morning/day. this pays off even more later when you get to show how much activity has gone on - the unsolicited testimonial as it were.

- create a party atmosphere when appropriate. this won’t ‘fly’ for the more serious industry conferences but let’s face it, many conference goers rely on this annual get together to party, hard. tie the celebrations into a greater whole by utilizing your exhibit hall space well. think beyond your ‘gala dinner’ - people want to have something fun to do each night, not just the last big one.

The best of all possibilities is when you ask the exhibitors themselves to participate in the above.

How can you transform a static exhibit hall full of brochures to an activity-based, participation-oriented conversation? The exhibitors will be thrilled to have you embrace their role - to provide value-based transactions that lead to business.

(3) Stop being embarassed. Let go of the tentativity.

Too many exhibit hall managers, regardless of the industry, are unwilling to go full tilt on behalf of their constituents - the exhibitors. This taints the experience for attendees who pick up on this - no one is going to linger in the exhibit hall if the event managers are hesitant about promoting it.

It’s true that the conference has to be successful as a whole - the attendees, who are paying to be there, must leave with value and eagerly await next year. The host organization has to turn a profit. But the exhibitors, who are responsible in large part for that profit, are too often the poor ‘third-class’ citizen in this group.

Stop being embarassed that you have an exhibit hall. Your tentativeness about making exhibitors happy is so obvious it’s like, well, *you’re* the one that’s on display. A simple tweak in attitude, valuing your exhibitors as key partners in making the conference a success, will net you bigger dividends than you might imagine.

Several final points that are usually ignored:

(1) Offer education to make your exhibitors the best they can be. First-timers especially will be forever in your debt if you help them look fabulous beside their bigger ‘brother and sister’ exhibitors.

(2) Ask your exhibitors to help publicize the event. Give them tools to make this easy, attractive, viral. Help them understand how to add value (see above.) Attendance is always a central concern for any conference - why not get everyone’s oars in the water on this?

(3) Generate camaraderie among the exhibitors. There is value in the relationships among your vendor list, and as a conference host, you can be a hero by fostering these. How about an exhibitors only thank you session before or after the conference? Personal introductions of one exhibitor to another, just because you sense there is big business that could be done between them? An exhibitor mastermind call prior to the conference?

Like many things, it’s the simple things that count. Start by realizing that a great Exhibit Hall can make a world of difference to your entire conference for all parties - attendees, exhibitors, and yourselves.