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

Replies to This Discussion

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

▶ Reply to This

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.

▶ Reply to This

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.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Charles Gatlin on February 8, 2010 at 11:29am

If you haven't already check out the Virtual Experience Platform on my web site
http://web3dhost.com then imagine sharing your data videos white papers or rich media to 50,000 international attendees. Then ask the question, will i successfully acquire a good amount of quality leads and exposure for my product?

Will business or organizations be interested in a metric system in world? (no brainer). There is a deal deal of confusion as to the purpose of this trade show scheduled for the first week in May. It is to allow companies like yours to get exposure, meaningful connections, leads, e commerce sales and possible sponsorship. To increase the awareness of the emerging technologies unique to Virtual Worlds. The platform provides a "Virtual Experience" for attendees and is non competitive in nature to Virtual Worlds. The Virtual experience platform is a stable data delivery platform highly scalable and adaptive to a host of industry applications not just trade shows.
In fact the platform stays in the background while allowing you to showcase your products and services.

Charles

▶ Reply to This

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.

▶ Reply to This

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!

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Paul Turner on February 8, 2010 at 9:31am

We are doing similar in Second Life - Streaming the live video of real world events for participation of a remote audience. All described in the video on the Virtual Beginnings website is possible in Second Life, although we haven't yet done anything on as large a scale as they describe (later this year we will for a conference in France) and the cost in SL is likely to fit better with the budgets of smaller organisations.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Charles Gatlin on February 8, 2010 at 11:09am

Thanks for your input Paul
As you may already know the Association of Virtual Worlds is hosting an industry wide Live Virtual Trade Shoe on May 2-7. The expected international turn out is 50M far too big to be done in-world currently. However as you indicate Virtual Worlds are well suited for smaller venues. The trade show will give you or your organization along with your peers an platform to showcase your work to a general audience and extend your global reach. To learn more about the delivery platform go here to my site: http://web3dhost.com/ I'm sure you'll be impressed. contact me direct of you would like more information.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Paul Turner on February 8, 2010 at 11:29am

Interesting and impressive Charles, thank you for that :)

As you say, Second Life has limits where the number of participants is concerned and we would always advise people of those limits.

I would be interested in more information and am sending you a friend request

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Charles Gatlin on February 8, 2010 at 11:45am

Sure Paul
If you follow the discussion I had last year with my buddy William G. Burnslll He asks a very important question that we explore in the discussion. That is why inworld tradeshows on this scale won't work at the present time. not to say in the future the two main issues won't be resolved.
I had a desire to help all Virtual Worlds and took my committee seat on the Global Ambassadors seriously. That is why of all the Trade Show and Exhibition companies out there I choose 6Connex. First of all It is a proven vehicle used by fortune 100 companies like Cisco, INTEL, Universal Studios... the list is quite long. Second the platform doesn't compete with what Virtual Worlds are all about. It offers a "Virtual Experience" and is not a Virtual World. I have always thought of it as a two way bridge between the Virtual World Community and the physical business and social community. It stays in the background to allow an organization, business or in this case an association to engage their audience and deliver rich content. A truly one stop solution.

Now let me go ahead and accept you as a friend before I forget (smile)
Charles

▶ Reply to This