How has COVID-19 directly impacted your exhibit-marketing program?
Our division within the company has cancelled our participation in all shows through August, but we are continuing with shows from September onward. All employees who can work from home are doing so, and no one has been furloughed.

What steps are you currently taking to mitigate these impacts?
Within our division, budgets have been reduced and some dollars have shifted to digital campaigns, mostly webinars. Our team has successfully launched a series of six virtual events, which included multiple webinars with live Q&As and booths with options to view and download videos and literature. Our entire marketing team was involved with pre- and post-event promotion, content creation, and speaker selection. Customer engagement has been high, and we are pleased with our results to date.

Has the absence of live events and trade shows impacted how your company's upper management perceives their value?
Trade shows are still an important part of our marketing mix.

Which of these impacts is the one that most keeps you up at night?
Even though no one has been furloughed, I fear that we may be forced to reduce the size of our team if live-event cancellations continue into Q4 of 2020 and Q1 of 2021.

Have your responsibilities and workload changed?
My workload shifted to virtual events and has increased slightly. I am also assisting the digital team with a project or two, which is new for me.

In the absence of trade shows and events, what strategies and tactics are you using to achieve objectives such as generating leads, increasing brand awareness, promoting new products, etc.?
Our six virtual events, titled "Reveal," have filled the gap for now, and more are planned in the next few months.

When you think about managing your program during the next 12 months, what concerns you the most, and why?
What concerns me the most is whether or not we'll have the same budgets for trade shows. I don't know if we will have the same sizes of booth spaces as in the past or whether we will be able to attend all of the shows we participated in before the pandemic.

How do you think your face-to-face marketing program will change in light of the pandemic?
Along with not knowing what kind of budget I'll have, I think some form of social distancing and sanitation will become standard. I also think we will have to implement more digital in-booth demos of our instruments versus shipping physical items to shows to compensate for lower budgets.

How do you think the future of face-to-face will change as a result of this pandemic?
Companies that provide sanitation services will be in demand and will be one more vendor in the show services package. Conference organizers may start to limit the number of exhibitors and/or attendees. Aisles may be much wider, all booths may have to be islands, or in-line booths may have an every-other configuration. Conferences and expos may open for fewer days or hours per day. International visitors will decrease. Social events in conjunction with conferences and trade shows may change because of social-distancing measures. Educational sessions may change, in that rooms have to be bigger or the number of participants has to shrink to accommodate social distancing.

How optimistic are you that shows you've regularly attended will return once the pandemic is over?
I'm optimistic that our core shows will return, but I suspect they will have a different structure and some form of social distancing.

How optimistic are you that suppliers you've regularly worked with will still be in business once the pandemic is over?
Unfortunately, I think many suppliers are going to go out of business and not return, which means fewer choices for us. For example, I believe a few lead-retrieval vendors may not survive, which will make us either use paper lead forms or seek out options.

What lessons have you learned from this COVID crisis that may benefit your program moving forward?
We will definitely include a pandemic clause in our contracts and scrutinize payment/cancellation schedules more closely. This situation is also forcing us to thoroughly evaluate whether we have to exhibit at some shows. If there is a virtual option that could yield the same lead generation and brand awareness, we may not exhibit.

What changes, if any, should the trade show and events industry collectively consider implementing as a result of this pandemic?
I think trade shows will need to be more efficient, meaning that organizers need to really think about how many hours the exhibit hall should be open and for how many days. For instance, we participate in one show that is four days long, and it could really be a two-day event. Also, show management, associations, show organizers, general service contractors, hotels, and audiovisual companies will all need to be receptive to adding pandemic clauses to contracts.

Read more interviews with exhibit managers coping with COVID-19.