How to find out who is exhibiting at a trade show

Once a fair publishes its exhibitor directory, that document is the answer and it is free. The interesting cases are the two it does not cover: the months before the directory goes up, when stands are sold but not listed, and the question asked the other way round, when you want to know which fairs one particular company will be standing at.

Before the directory is published

Organisers sell stands from about a year out and publish the directory much later, often eight to twelve weeks before the doors open. In that gap the information exists and is scattered. Five places carry it.

1. 1The sponsors and partners page. It goes up long before the exhibitor list, because sponsorship is sold first and the logos are part of what the organiser is selling to everybody else.
2. 2Last year's directory. Still on the site more often than not, and for a recurring fair the overlap between editions is large. Treat it as a candidate list rather than an answer, and expect a fifth of it to have changed.
3. 3The exhibitors' own announcements. A company that has paid for a stand says so, on its news page, in a press release and on LinkedIn, and the post usually names the stand number and who is going. This is the highest-quality source in the list and the most scattered.
4. 4The conference programme. Speakers are announced before exhibitors because they sell tickets. A company with somebody on the agenda almost always has a stand as well.
5. 5The organiser's media pack. Written for advertisers, so it carries the stated exhibitor count, the visitor profile and often a list of returning names.

The question aimed at a company instead of a fair

Which trade shows is this company exhibiting at? No directory answers that, because the directories are per fair and there are thousands of them. It is the question a seller has when a target account matters more than any particular event, and it is the question an account manager has before renewal season.

By hand it is a search per fair. Pengo has a press for it: one search keyed on a company, which comes back with the fairs it will be at over the next year, who from that company is going, and what they have posted about it. The window opens behind today as well, back to the first of January, so this year's editions come back under their own heading rather than being mixed in with what is still to come.

One thing that trips people up: the search is keyed on a company name and a website, and the website is required rather than helpful. A company name on its own is not an identity. There are four companies called Delta in most industries, and a search aimed at a bare name will confidently return the wrong one's calendar.

The same press exists one noun over, for a person: which fairs they will be at, what they have posted, and what they do. It is keyed on the person and their employer together, for exactly the reason above, except worse, because a person's name is almost never an identity on its own.

Reading a stand list for intent

A directory tells you more than which companies are present, if you read the metadata rather than the names.

Hall and stand number

Halls are usually themed, so the hall a company chose says which category it wants to be read as. That is frequently more honest than the description on its website, because a stand costs money and a paragraph does not.

Stand size

Not always published, but visible on the floor plan. A company that has quadrupled its footprint since the last edition has made a budget decision about this market, and that decision is a buying signal before anybody has said a word.

First-time exhibitors

Some fairs flag them. A first-time exhibitor is a company entering a market, which usually means a new team, a new budget line and nobody entrenched.

Who is on the agenda as well

A company with both a stand and a speaking slot has committed twice. It is also the case where you can name a specific person and know which room they will be in at which hour.

What Pengo does with the question

Pointed at a fair, it reads the exhibitor directory end to end, works out what each company sells from that company's own pages, scores every stand against a description of who you sell to, and names the speakers and stand contacts it can find. Every fact carries the page it was read on.

Pointed at a company, it answers the reverse: the fairs that company will be at within a year, the people going, and the posts they have written. If your account already holds a fair whose directory names that company, the appearance is seeded from what you paid to establish rather than being rediscovered from scratch. It is seeded without a role, because a listing says a company is on a fair's list and not in what capacity, and exhibitor is precisely the guess that is wrong on the pages that prompted the rule.

Neither press asks who you sell to. Both are extraction rather than judgment, so the prompt behind them carries no ICP at all: what comes back is what the pages say, and the ranking against your buyer is a separate thing you buy separately.

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