Does anyone have experience in hosting virtual or physical trade shows?

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Permalink Reply by William G. Burns III on October 12, 2009 at 8:17am

Hey Charles,

Which company are you speaking about? If it's Digitell Inc (Virtualbeginnings.com) then their estimates are more than likely accurate and I would trust them. I've worked with them before as a consulting expert and they've been doing pretty good lately with the VirtualEdge Expo (Engage Expo) and a number of other virtual trade shows and virtual expos (RIMS and others). Digitell Inc is located in NY State as is their VirtualU (virtualbeginnings.com branch).

If you would like, I could come up with details from Digitell Inc/Virtual U concerning this.

- Will

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Permalink Reply by Charles Gatlin on October 12, 2009 at 12:19pm

Good to Hear from you William!

I have partnered with a technology platform that has all the bases covered (I'll email you the name in a private email). My company is looking forward to marketing to the 90% of businesses not on the internet but who use trade shows as a major source for revenue and leads. The market research I'm looking to gather is the real world cost associated with participating in and hosting a physical trade show. The costs of travel, lodging, booths, and logistics vs a virtual solution.

The info I'm compiling will be incorporated into my sales material so I'm not seeking any confidential information here.

This information will be supplied to the certified consultants within my organization as part of their lead generation systems.

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Permalink Reply by Jared Freedman on October 13, 2009 at 7:53am

You are barking up exactly the right tree. The virtual trade show is a 'killer-app' for the virtual world industry and we at Code4Software believe so strongly in this upcoming market that we have created the first platform for tracking impressions and activity at large scale virtual world shows. Our product, ShowMetrics is now being used by IBM for their initiatives and will be available to the general public on November 15th. You can check out some youtube of the product in action:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTZ38NjyBJ4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_NT_9iqV9Y

One of the most compelling arguments for Virtual World trade show providers is that all the activity inside the trade show can be tracked and delivered to the exhibitors in action reports that will allow them to proactively market to the people most interested in their offerings.

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Permalink Reply by Charles Gatlin on October 14, 2009 at 11:14am

Thank you Jared for the info. Forrester in their report was accurate in that Virtual platforms must compliment the existing realworld models. Good work over there.

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Permalink Reply by Charles Gatlin on October 20, 2009 at 9:50pm

Thank you Jared
Let me say the Virtual Worlds have helped the real world in many regards. Good work in there!

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