Simon Willison’s Weblog

What are some interesting and unusual tactics to draw people to your booth at a large conference or convention?

23rd April 2013

My answer to What are some interesting and unusual tactics to draw people to your booth at a large conference or convention? on Quora

Make sure you have people on the stand who know their stuff—ideally people who built the thing you are promoting. Make it worthwhile for people to come and talk to you. Don’t have booth babes who are there for their looks rather than their expertise.

Have really cool demos running. Ideally of your product, but if your product doesn’t demo well you can improvise. I saw one trade show booth recently that had a 3D printer and camera-based computer vision system rigged up—it was only tangentially related to their product but it was super interesting and started loads of conversations.