It’s no secret that finding new exhibitors and vendors for your event can be a daunting task. From calling, emailing, attending other events, and writing down names it can be quite the time sucker.

You’re running events and already have a million things to do, the last thing you want to do is find the needle in the haystack.

Let’s chat about how to find vendors for your event shall we?

Overview

Let’s lay the groundwork and build up from there.

Exhibitors and vendors attend events to sell more goods and services or increase brand exposure. If it doesn’t accomplish one of those two goals, why should they attend your event?

After all, these are businesses we’re dealing with here that aim to make a profit at the end of the year!

Events want exhibitors and vendors at their event to increase the value of the event and add an additional revenue source. Attendees love visiting booths, and with the right exhibitors and vendors, they can make your event a smashing success.

Now that we’ve laid the groundwork there are 5 things we need to do to attract more exhibitors to your event.

How To Find Vendors For Your Event

Easy Application Process:

Nobody likes to jump through a bunch of hoops just to apply to an event, and submitting paper applications is the worst! If you haven’t already, check out the Fair and Event Booth Management solution that lets your exhibitors and vendors apply and manage their applications online.

Being able to quickly and easily fill out their application increases the experience from the get-go.

Keep your application process simple and straightforward. List your instructions clearly at the beginning of the application. Clear communication is key here, bulleted lists work great for this!

Treat Them Like Family:

The old saying, treat others how you’d like to be treated pertains more than ever to your exhibitors and vendors. The exhibitor and vendor network is a tight nit family where everyone talks to each other and provides feedback.

If you build your relationship with your exhibitors and vendors, they will be there to help when you need them. Refrain from seeing exhibitors as exhibitors, rather see them as instrumental partners to your event.

Whether we want to believe it or not, exhibitors and vendors play an instrumental role in our events.

When you shift your actions to ones that benefit all parties, greater outcomes fall into place shortly after.

Understand Their Goals:

Yes, this takes some extra work, but once you understand what the exhibitors and vendors goals are you can better align yourself for mutual success.

It’s kinda like starting a new relationship, for it to work long-term you need to both understand what each other’s goals are. Once you do, you can work with each other to accomplish great things!

For example, let’s say your exhibitors target customer is the family’s who enjoy fishing. Your event just so happens to have a kids fishing pond at it. It’d greatly benefit your exhibitor if their booth was right next to that kid’s fishing pond because that’s where their target customers will be spending time at. Why not place their booth right next to the kid’s fishing pond? It’d help accomplish your exhibitors goals, strengthen your relationship, increase the attendee experience, and you still received their booth fees.

Reasonable Fees:

Reasonable is such a relative term, especially when it comes to fees. If your fees are $1,000 for a 10’x10’ but most exhibitors and vendors only make $1,200 that just doesn’t cut it.

A general rule of thumb we like to follow is your booth fees should be roughly 10%-20% of what the average booth makes or the value they get from being at your event. If most of your booths make $2,000 then your fees should be around $200-$400.

Clearly, there is a lot of grey area here.

Don’t be afraid to explain your fees either. Build your value to show why an exhibitor or vendor should pay the fee you are asking for. Do you offer exceptional pre-event marketing, a special lead capture app (hey Fair and Event has that solution too) for booths to “check-in” attendees to their booth, or maybe your event is super niche and will be a pot of gold for specific businesses.

Whatever value you provide to businesses make it clear and make it known!

That’s A Wrap!

To attract new exhibitors and vendors you must play the long game, building event report comes with time.

We hope you enjoyed this article on how to find vendors for your event!

Looking for a solution to help manage your vendors and exhibitors? Fusion Manager might be the answer!

You might also enjoy this video on How to Find Vendors and Exhibitors

❤️ Your Fusion Team