Creative Impact Group Special Events Planning

On-site, After-hours Parties Aren’t Just for Fun

Business at a trade show can be divided into two parts: what you do at the booth and what you do away from it. With a captive audience of existing and potential clients and customers gathered in one place at one time, it makes sense to extend your marketing efforts beyond the tradeshow floor. Budget permitting, of course, you can throw a party anywhere in town, but there’s a lot to be said for holding hospitality events right at the hotel or convention center where the show is meeting. It’s cheaper, there’s no travel time involved, so people are more likely to show up, and it can be as basic or as elaborate as your checkbook and inclinations will allow.

That may mean something as simple as a suite with drinks, pretzels and popcorn, or as glitzy as a “Backstage on Broadway” soiree mounted a few years ago by a major cloting manufacturer, complete with custom built sets, food and entertainment based on “South Pacific”, “Grease”, and “Phantom of the Opera”.

Or it can mean something in-between, such as an easy to do party. You can have a host dressed as Sherlock Holmes, Holmes-style pipes and hats as centerpieces, giant spyglasses or blowups of great mystery novels on the wall, and even a participatory mystery game. Tie it back to your company with a theme like “Our Success is No Mystery!” and you have a great recipe for doing after-hours business.

Cementing Relationships

Hospitality events are not just excuses to party. They play an important role in creating a friendly working relationship with clients and customers, old and new. A good hospitality event becomes a second tradeshow floor, offering your sales staff the opportunity to mingle with key contacts away from the hubub of your show booth. You’ve heard of mixing business with pleasure: This is mixing pleasure with business, and it works.

In many cases, in fact, clients perceive less sales pressure and are more willing to ask questions in the relaxed atmosphere of a hospitality event. And your sales staff has an additional chance to make an impression. Maybe your guests stopped by your booth when it was too crowded to have a meaningful conversation. Maybe their senses were so dulled after hours of being on their feet and having literature stuck in their faces that nothing you said stayed with them. Maybe, after visiting competitors booths, they simply need more information. Or maybe they just want to network with people in your organization. Hospitality events serve all those purposes. And when done well, they’re like forget-me-nots, leaving a positive memory that serves you well after the show is over.

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