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How many unique companies spend more than $50,000 on an average booth at trade shows globally per year?
Hello! Thank you for contacting Wonder to find out the number of companies that spend more than US$50,000, annually, on an average booth at trade shows across the globe. This was an extremely challenging research question without access to the robust information provided by the CEIR Census data. As such, the following response is made up of extrapolated data, and in short, I have calculated that there should be at least an estimated 440,000 unique companies that conservatively spend $50,000 per year on trade show booths across the globe. And, I calculate that 176,000 unique companies are providing $15.4B of the trade show exhibitor market revenue worldwide. Below is a deep dive of my calculations and findings.
METHODOLOGY
To begin, I looked for breakdowns of exhibitor spending at trade shows. Immediately, the CEIR Census, which is behind a paywall, appeared as the definitive source of information here. The 2016
sample provides data analysis for years 2002 - 2015 and predictive forecasts through 2018. It is the most recent comprehensive statistical analysis of the exhibition industry by the Center for Exhibition Industry Research measuring the critical data in the four key elements of the exhibition market:
- Net square footage (NSF)
- Exhibitor
- Attendance
- Revenue
At $750 for members of CEIR or $1,000 for non-members, it is pricey but may be a good investment for precise evaluation of this market.
Without this resource, it is important to build a market analysis using as many factors as are publicly available and some assumptions based on sample analysis.
Therefore, I set out to determine a few facts in my search:
1. How much does it cost to build a booth at a trade show?
2. What is the average booth size at a trade show? Is there a breakdown by size anywhere in public information? If not, can I find a sample to use as an assumption for calculations
I could find that the median sized booth is 100 net square feet (NSF) however, I could not find any breakdowns of exhibitors by size of booth. So I decided to look at exhibit maps to try to visually estimate the number of larger booths.
3. State assumptions and create a market size calculation.
Please see details in Findings, below.
FINDINGS
1. How much does it cost to build a booth at a trade show?
From exhibit building companies and articles, the industry average to purchase individual portable trade show booths is $100-$150 per square foot.
a. Therefore, most 20x20, 400 net square feet (nsf) displays would qualify their owners for spending $40,000-$60,000 for the space (an average of $50,000).
2. Average booth size
I hoped to find a breakdown of exhibitors by booth size somewhere. I was unsuccessful in this endeavor. What I did find was:
a. After the global recession, in 2015, the median booth size was decreased from 200 nsf to 100 nsf and it is unlikely to have grown dramatically since then.
b. A map of a popular trade show at a popular exhibition hall from which I could deduce that 20% of the attendees had booths at or greater than 400nsf.
Organizer: Consumer Technology Association
# Exhibitors: 3,631
3. Total market size information
From your previous research, I used the following information:
a. There are 4.4M exhibitors per year at trade shows across the globe. I found support for this in several sources.
c. The total market value for trade show spending in the US alone is $14B annually and approximately $30B globally.
4. Unique exhibitors
The median number of events participated in by each exhibitor is 5. This number has declined since the global recession.
CALCULATIONS
A. Total Unique Companies attending trade shows:
There are 4.4M exhibitors per year at trade shows across the globe. The median number of events participated in by each exhibitor is 5. Therefore, there are 880,000 unique companies participating in trade shows annually.
4.4M/5 exhibits per year = 880,000 unique companies
B. Average Spending on Booth:
If the median number of events in which each exhibitor participates is 5, then the median total exhibitor spend is $100,000 per year.
$20,000 x 5 = $100,000.
C. Unique Companies spending $50,000/year on trade show booths:
Therefore, it is safe to assume that half of all the unique companies who exhibit, spend over $50,000 per year on trade shows globally.
That would mean there are over 440,000 unique companies that satisfy this.
880,000 x 50% = 440,000
D. Unique Companies spending $50,000 per trade show booth:
However, if you are looking for the number of unique companies that are spending over $50,000 per trade show booth, I would use the Pareto Principle, also called the 80/20 rule to calculate that 80% of the trade revenue comes from 20% of the exhibitor companies and would assume therefore that 176,000 unique companies are providing $15.4B of the trade show exhibitor market revenue since 64% of all trade show revenue comes from exhibitors with 70% of that attributed to exhibit space.
880,000 x 20% = 176,000 (20% of all the unique exhibitor companies)
$15.4B x 70% = $10.8B (Revenue generated from exhibit space)
ADDITIONAL NOTES
- Average Floor Space for a trade show exhibit costs $21 per square foot. The price typically goes down per square foot in tiers as the exhibitor increases nsf. So, for a 20x20 (400 nsf) floor space rental expect to pay around $8,400 but this is only 1/3 of all the costs involved so typically, additional costs would increase the budget for this 20x20 exhibit to $25,200.
- There are typically 4 standard sized booth formats that companies can box together to build their exhibition space.
- The global recession hit the exhibition industry very hard. Median exhibitor spending, frequency of attendance across trade shows and NSF all declined and are very slow to recover.
- In 2011, companies participated in a median of 9 events annually, with a median booth size of 200 net square feet.
- In 2014, the median number of exhibitions participated in was 5, an increase from 4 in 2013, and is projected to remain at 5 in 2015.
CONCLUSION
To wrap it up, 440,000 unique companies spend over $50,000 per year on booths at trade shows while 176,000 unique companies account for $15.4B in trade show spending globally based on assumptions that I could find through my search.
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