Will Trade Shows Continue To Exist In 2030

Yes, trade shows will continue to exist in 2030.

Google, Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat. These are the marketing channels marketers think of when they create a marketing strategy.

You don’t hear about traditional marketing channels like TV, radio, and newspapers.

TV’s market share is getting crunched by YouTube, Facebook, and Netflix.
Radio’s market share is being stolen away from podcasts, Spotify and Audible.
Newspaper circulation has been on a steady decline for years.

On the other hand, trade shows have been on a steady increase. In 2016, 20.77 million m² of space was sold globally by exhibition organisers which is a 5.5% increase compared to last year.

The chart below shows the size of the trade show industry.

Read more about the trends behind the trade show industry.

What makes trade shows unique compared to TV and radio?

Convenience. Most importantly, trade shows are convenient for influential people. These are your management teams, C-level executives, journalists, and business owners. That is one of the biggest benefits that a trade show brings that is very hard to disrupt.

Trade shows bring relevant companies together under one roof. The keyword here is relevant. For example, an electric vehicle conference such as EV Tech Expo would consist of companies in charging infrastructure, battery materials, automotive distributors, battery software companies, power generation companies, automotive companies, etc.

You can’t just Google “electric vehicles companies” and get results of similar quality because they are so many different companies in the electric vehicle supply chain.

Secondly, in a trade show, you can walk up to an exhibitor and get a quick company summary and a product demo.

Lastly, trade shows are where big deals are made.

Here are two examples:

$182m was invested into projects identified at Energy Mines and Money conference.
$72 billion worth of aircraft sales were sold in the 2012 Farnborough International Airshow.

You don’t hear results anywhere close to this on TV or radio.

Summary

Trade shows bring relevant companies together under one roof.
You can walk up to a company’s exhibition stand and get a quick company summary and a product demo.
Trade shows are where big deals are made.

That is why trade shows will continue to exist in 2030.