How to Choose the Best Interactive Trade Show Activity? Use These 9 Tips

As someone who has visited several big and small trade shows over the years, it is not difficult to point out how such physical events have changed.

For instance, most new exhibitors are kind of obsessed with booth design. But while a creatively designed trade show booth is indeed important, you’ll need a lot more than a pretty-looking booth to succeed.

With hundreds of booths competing for attention, a well-designed booth alone rarely creates the kind of buzz you’re looking for. You need to supercharge it with an interactivity activity or gamify it to create that FOMO vibe and attract the crowd.

How to Choose the Right Interactive Activity for Your Trade Show Booth?

From immersive augmented reality experiences to the low-tech fishbowl and raffle, there is no shortage of trade show booth activity ideas. So, how do you choose the best for your booth? Here are 9 tips that can help-

1- Start with Your Trade Show Budget

Your budget is one of the most critical criteria for selecting fun trade show activities. Especially now that businesses have started recovering from the pandemic, it is essential to make cost-effective decisions.

[READ: Trade Show Booth on a Budget]

Typically, more hi-tech activities, such as AR/VR games, are more expensive and require extensive setups.

If you're looking for an online booth activity, something like a custom trade show quiz could make more financial sense as the booth game effectively contributes to event objectives and requires minimal setup.    

2- Choose a Trade Show Activity That Promotes Your Brand

Building brand awareness is one of the top reasons businesses consider exhibiting at trade shows. So, while selecting a trade show booth activity, choose something that aligns with your brand personality.

For example, if the activity features visual elements, the images, colors, logos, and type font should mesh with your company identity. It is a simple and effective way to enhance brand impact and memorability.

[READ: Brand Promotion with Custom Trivia Game]

3- Ensure the Booth Activity Educates

You’re probably spending thousands of dollars on a trade show to expand your reach and help people learn more about you and your products/services. Needless to say, your trade show entertainment ideas should contribute to this objective.

For instance, a custom trade show quiz can feature personalized questions according to the exhibitors' objectives. So, as people play the quiz, they automatically learn more about the brand, its products/services, USPs, and more.

4- Don’t Ignore Online Lead Collection

Lead loss is a common problem with traditional lead collection methods like business cards, badge scanners and lead forms. If you still use them, maybe it's time to upgrade to a digital strategy as people now expect every business they deal with to be digitally advanced.

[Read: Custom Trade Show Games VS Badge Scanners for Lead Collection]

An effective method is choosing a trade show activity with online lead collection capabilities. The visitors can be asked to fill up a short online lead form before enjoying the activity to digitize the lead collection process and help you with your lead collection objectives. 

5- Select an Interactive Activity That is Not Too Complicated

While the booth activity should require some knowledge and skill, it should not be complicated. Visitors should just walk up to your booth and jump right in.

If you select a complex game, you'll have to explain it to all the visitors and lose precious time. Moreover, people generally won't be interested in learning the intricacies. This is one of the reasons something like trivia works well at trade show booths, as it is a simple game yet requires knowledge to win. Moreover, you can get it customized per

[READ: Interactive Trade Show Booth Games VS Other Promotional Activities]

6- Trade Show Booth Activity That Doesn’t Require a Lot of Space

Trade show booths are expensive, and not every brand has the budget for larger booths. So, booth activities like scavenger hunts or ones played on AR/VR sets may not be practical for smaller booths like 10'x10's.

[READ: 10x10 Trade Show Booth Ideas]

So, select trade show booth interactive ideas that work effectively irrespective of whether you have a 10'x10' booth or something bigger.

For instance, games like trade show quizzes only require a few iPads (or other devices) for gameplay and a display for the live leaderboard, making it an excellent choice for booths of every size. 

7- A Leaderboard to Add That Competitive Edge

Interactive booth activities are just incomplete without live leaderboards. It adds that competitive element to the game, encouraging people to play more attentively.

The entire process of scoring points and watching their names on the leaderboard makes people more attentive while playing the game.

And the more attentive they are, the more they’ll know about your company.

8- Extensive Staff Training is a Big No

Apart from not having a lot of instructions and explanations for the booth visitors, the activity or game should also not require extensive staff training.

If you're going with an in-house team to staff the booth, you'll already have a lot on your plate regarding training. And even if you hire professional staffers, the additional training for the booth activity will only prove more burdensome for you and the staff.

[READ: Trade Show Booth Staff Training Guide]

9- Booth Activity with Live Support

While this element is not related to the activity but to the activity provider, it certainly deserves your attention. If the activity or game is the star attraction of your booth, you cannot afford any technical glitches or other issues with the activity.

So, ensure the activity comes with live support. If anything goes wrong during the event, the activity/game provider should help resolve it instantly.

Selecting the Best Trade Show Booth Activity

Interactive activities can give your booth an edge over others at trade shows. But the success of the activity depends on what you select. So, focus on these tips when working on your trade fair ideas, as they will make the selection easier.

But if the event is fast-approaching and you don’t have enough time to research and compare, go with a custom trade show trivia. It is one of the best ideas for booth activities and works exceedingly well for B2B brands from every industry.

‍