A trade show floor plan is a map, not a plan. It shows where every stand is and says nothing about which ones you should be standing in front of. Turning it into a route means cutting a directory of two hundred to two thousand companies down to the twelve or fifteen a day you can actually reach, in an order that walks itself.
Start with the arithmetic, because it is brutal
Work out how many stands a day really holds before you build a list, or you will build one three times too long and improvise on the floor.
- A conversation worth having at a stand runs 10 to 20 minutes. Under that you have swapped a card, which you could have done by email.
- Crossing a large hall takes 5 to 10 minutes, and crossing between halls at a big fair can take 20.
- A show day is 7 or 8 hours, minus lunch, minus the two sessions you actually wanted to sit in, minus the twenty minutes you will lose finding one stand that moved.
That is roughly 12 to 15 stands a day if the route is tight, and 8 if it is not. Three days is somewhere between 24 and 45 stands. Against a 200-stand directory you are selecting about one company in six, and against a 2,000-stand fair one in fifty.
The five cuts, in order
- 1Get the complete exhibitor list. Complete matters more than fast: a copy that stopped at page one looks exactly like a small fair, and you will plan a trip around a sixth of the floor without knowing it. Check the number of rows you hold against the exhibitor count the organiser states.
- 2Find out what each company sells, in its own words. This is the expensive step by hand, about two minutes a company, and everything after it is worthless without it.
- 3Score every company against your buyer, with a reason attached. Not a filter on employee count. A judgment you can disagree with.
- 4Cut to what is walkable. Take the top of the ranking until you hit your day arithmetic, then stop. A list of ninety targets is a list of nothing.
- 5Reorder by hall. This is the step that gives you back a day. A route sorted by score zigzags the venue; a route sorted by hall with the scores visible inside each hall walks in one direction.
The ordering of the last two is not interchangeable. Score first and you get a ranking. Group by hall first and you get a route through companies you do not care about. Score, cut, then group.
What a plan carries that a floor plan does not
| The organiser's floor plan | A walk plan | |
|---|---|---|
| Coverage | Every stand at the fair | The 30 or so you can reach, chosen from all of them |
| Ordering | Geographic, by hall and aisle | By hall, with fit visible inside each hall |
| Why a stand is on it | It is on it because the company paid for it | A sentence about what they sell and why it matches your buyer |
| Who you are looking for | Not covered. The map has no people on it | Named people on the stand, and their role |
| What happens after | Nothing. It is a map | Pinned, skipped and visited marks, and notes per stand |
Do not throw away the ones you cut
The stands that scored well and did not make the route are the most useful list you will have that week, and most people delete it. Those companies are at the fair, they are a fit, and you now know what they sell. That is a warm outbound list with a real reason to open the email, and the reason expires the day the fair closes.
Mark them skipped rather than deleting them, export the file, and send to them during the show rather than after it. The two most common mistakes are mailing them a fortnight later, when the fair is no longer a reason, and mailing all two hundred, which is what makes the tactic stop working for everybody.
The agenda is a separate list, and it moves the route
Sessions get planned last and then rearrange everything, because a talk is fixed in time where a stand is not. Pull the programme early, pick the two or three talks that are genuinely worth an hour, and build the walk around them. A speaker from a target company is worth more than their stand: they will be in one place at a known time and are usually easier to speak to for five minutes afterwards than on a busy stand.
Doing it with Pengo
One press reads the fair's directory to its last page and profiles every company on it. Scoring ranks every stand against a description of your buyer with the sentence it was decided on. The booth list groups by hall in walk order for the floor and sorts by column for the week before, and every row can be pinned, skipped or marked visited with a note.
The people purchase walks every stand and the organiser's programme, which brings back the timetable and the speakers together. Pins and notes are yours and no research pass can overwrite them.
A 200-stand fair read in full is 2,750 credits, about $11, which is the exhibitor list, a profile for every company and a score on every stand. People at that size are about 6,400 credits more. Plans start at $39 a month and one fair a month is free. Prices are on the pricing page.
Questions
How many booths can you realistically visit in a day at a trade show?
Between 8 and 15. A conversation worth having runs 10 to 20 minutes, crossing a large hall takes 5 to 10, and a show day is 7 or 8 hours before lunch and sessions. Three days is roughly 24 to 45 stands.
Is there software to map target booths at a trade fair?
Interactive floor plan software such as ExpoFP and Map Your Show is sold to the event organiser and gives visitors a searchable map for free. For deciding which stands are worth visiting, you need the exhibitor directory read in full, each company profiled and each stand scored against your buyer.
Should I plan a trade show route by score or by hall?
Both, in that order. Score every company, cut the list to what a day can hold, then reorder the survivors by hall. Ordering by score alone sends you zigzagging across the venue and costs you several stands a day.
What do I do with target companies I did not have time to visit?
Mark them skipped rather than deleting them and email them during the show, while the fair is still a live reason to make contact. They are already qualified and you already know what they sell. Send to the ones that scored, not to the whole directory.
When should I plan a trade show visit?
Two to six weeks out. Earlier than that the exhibitor directory is still filling up, and later leaves no time for pre-show outreach, which is where most booked meetings come from.
How do I find out who will be on a stand before I get there?
Some organisers publish stand contacts in the event app after you register, and speakers are almost always published on the agenda. Beyond that it is research on each company's own pages. Pengo does this as a separate purchase covering every stand plus the programme.