You’ve seen it at every trade show or expo. The 10′ x 10′ booth with a table of brochures and business cards and a fishbowl to collect business cards for a drawing. Oh, yeah, that’s special.
Now imagine this. You’re walking down a trade show aisle and you hear a clicking sound along with laughs and cheers. And everyone seems to be heading to or hovering around the booth where these sounds are coming from. What is going on? Trade show games… a real, live game activity that can help exhibitors engage with their audiences and encourage them to spend more time and, we hope, more money as a result.
Click Here to Watch Prize Wheels Help Create Tradeshow Excitement on YouTube
Today, a lot of electronic, location-based games are making their mark as booth traffic generators. This is a great development, especially since these games can begin prior to the show visitors ever entering the door. For a great discussion on the subject, visit Lara McCulloch’s Ready2Spark blog post “Gamification – Have You Heard of It? You Will.”
But onsite, there is something special about a real live game that gets people involved. Why? Simply, the more senses you can engage–sight, sound, touch, taste–the more you can engage your audience.
Plus, by only handing out your promotional products to those who participate in your booth game, you can gain some control over your givewaway budget, too. Make ‘em earn it!
So let’s look at some choices you can use to make your exhibit say “Come on down!”:
- Prize/Roulette Wheels – Clicking sound helps attract visitors. Plus, you can create your own inserts for segments on the wheel.
- Bean Bag Toss – Gets people moving and engages touch as they throw the bean bags toward the target.
- Plinko – Yes, just like you’ve seen on the game shows. Visitors drop the pucks to see if they win a prize. Inserts for prizes are completely customizable.
All of these can be used for tradeshows, fundraisers, parties, grand openings, open houses, or any event where you want to create a fun and engaging atmosphere. These game products featured on PromoWithPurposeShop.com are all made in the USA.
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I stopped by a booth at the WEC in Vancouver that was set up like a game show…it was so much fun and MEMORABLE. As an attendee, I appreciate the effort.
Thanks, Judy, for sharing your experience with us! Marketing truly is all about creating fun and memorable experiences for our audiences.
Great post Heidi! My company Grosh Backdrops has a Plinko game we play at the dance trade shows we attend and its a hit! Winners walk away with discounts, free return shipping or a Grosh sweat band and it always draws a huge crowd. We keep an excel spreadsheet with the winners names, company, title, email, phone # and the prize they won so when they call in we can easily track the ROI and it works as a sorta landing page as well!
Thanks, Lindsay, for taking the time to share your tradeshow game experience with us! You make a great point about using it to track ROI and as a “landing page.” Always appreciate your insight!
Totally agree, Heidi! We’ve done some custom flash-based game shows for booths that have created “standing room only” situations of people watching the game and waiting to play. You instantly have something to say other than, “Hi do you want a [squooshy stress ball, free pen, coffee mug]?” Plus, by having multiple prize levels you actually can encourage people to try again- “Everyone gets a stress ball for playing, but get over 1500 points and get the mug!” Instead of a drawing, have the high score of the day get the “big prize”. Now you’ve got multiple opportunities to talk to the same prospect while they wait their turn to play. Just don’t make that wait too long- it’s a balance!
Thanks, Brandt, for sharing your game show experience with us. So true that asking booth visitors to participate in a fun activity is so much more effective than just handing them a giveaway. I like how you’ve tied the “big prize” to the activity. Drawings are just creating ho-hum responses these days. As you’ve noted engagement is the key!
When I did my companies first trade show (7-8 years ago) we had a booth right beside a guy who used a similar spin the wheel game. This guy and his son (probably in 6th or 7th grade) were working the show like no buddies business. The sounds did attract people, but they father and son were very excited and entertaining. They made the show a lot of fun and pumped us up to be more excited and have a great show as well. Heck we even got a ton of overflow traffic. Now since this was our first show, we were happy for this overflow, but not everyone was qualified. Anyhow, this was a great strategy and worked really well. I will reach out to Sam and share this article with him. We have been friends since that show. So this technique certainly is good and works well for being remembered, building energy (some of this has to be the person working the booth though) and building relationships. Great article Heidi!
Good point, Dale! Agreed, you can’t just hope to drop a game in a booth and think it’ll magically attract folks. You gotta sell it! Sounds like your booth neighbors did it right.
Game shows (and games) are great ways to engage prospects at a booth. The biggest challenge that exhibitors face is matching the game with the objectives of the booth and your ideal visitor. If you just want foot traffic (assuming everyone attending is an ideal client), prize wheels, plinko, and the sort are great. However, if you are looking to get detailed and specific leads, there are some other ways to make it happen.
For a software company, the audience could be introduced to a five-minute product presentation. Then, a game show host would come out and run a quiz show for another seven minutes (based on the product presentation). The winner would receive a copy of their new software suite (not a demo). Everyone that participated would get a USB flash drive (that includes all of the product info and demo software). That demo software could contain a custom activation code that relates it back to the expo where it was given out. When the demo code is activated, the sales team can follow up and they will know it came from a specific show, and follow up accordingly.
Scavenger hunts are also another way to garner participation. They can be designed to have learning and lead qualification elements. I had a conversation with the guys at SCVNGR (scvngr.com) about what they have been working on to provide ROI on the exhibition floor. It’s pretty amazing.
As a nod to Lara’s blog… Gamification is here. Embracing it can only generate more ROI (just make sure it’s relevant to your product/service).
Thanks, Glenn, for commenting!
Agreed, matching objectives and ideal prospects is challenging. I love the software example you provided. As I’ve mentioned in other posts, make ‘em earn the goodies.
Scavenger hunts, I think, are more fun that those “show pass” deals where you have to visit such and such booths to be entered to win something. QR codes are the ideal way to do those these days.
Yes, gamification of shows–and other aspects of business as well–is here and will only get bigger.
Appreciate your insight. Thanks for sharing with us!
We found the slot machine software at http://www.TradeShowSlots.com to be very effective at our trade shows this year. It manages prize giveaways and draws quite the crowd. Our last show in Orlando went over nicely with the software allowing every booth visitor to play, while being exposed to our corporate logos and prize icons spinning on the slot machine reels… Was terrific.
Ah, cool! I like it