At Messe Exhibition: Potential for Vendors to Overlook Opportunities
In the bustling world of the professional audio and entertainment sector, the approach to marketing at trade fairs like Prolight + Sound is shifting towards experiential and interactive formats, rather than relying heavily on digital promotion.
According to Kai Hattendorf, who runs Digital Business at Messe Frankfurt, companies exhibiting need to ensure coverage of more and more different communications media as their business globalizes. This sentiment is particularly relevant for the development of digital marketing strategies for trade fairs.
A recent study reveals that while modern marketing tools such as social media, search engine marketing, and mobile advertising are generally important, their use among exhibitors at Prolight + Sound remains relatively low. The low utilisation of these tools can be understood in the context of how trade fairs in the industry are evolving and the nature of exhibitor priorities.
Key reasons for this trend include the focus on physical experience and direct engagement, eventification trend, cost versus measurable benefits, and hybrid and digital integration happening at the event level. Exhibitors prioritise face-to-face interaction and live experiences to make a stronger impression, invest in dramaturgically designed presentations and live shows, and seek strategic preparation and follow-up for measurable results through lead tracking and matchmaking apps.
Organisers provide hybrid formats with digital content and tools like event apps to facilitate networking and lead generation, so exhibitors may rely on the event’s digital infrastructure rather than individually investing heavily in social or search engine marketing.
In summary, the relatively low use of modern digital marketing tools by Prolight + Sound exhibitors is driven by the experiential nature of the industry’s trade fairs, the preference for direct on-site engagement over digital outreach, strategic use of event-provided digital tools for lead generation, and economic considerations balancing cost and measurable return on investment.
This reflects the evolving role of trade fairs as flexible business platforms combining live experience, networking, and selective digital integration rather than relying solely on separate online marketing efforts. Particular emphasis is placed on the development of digital marketing solutions for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). Comprehensive digital marketing solutions are being developed for trade fairs, intended to complement the traditional onsite marketing offer.
Every spring, Prolight + Sound opens its doors to visitors from the light, sound, and events communities, with the aim of facilitating making new contacts, presenting and selling products, and interacting with target groups. Prolight + Sound Guangzhou 2025 was a large event with 2,209 exhibitors and over 110,000 visitors, and brands leveraged the fair to reach international audiences through product launches and fringe events showcasing innovative technologies.
Kai Hattendorf has produced a video summarising the key findings of this study, emphasising the globalization of businesses and the need for trade fairs to cover more communications media. Online offerings during the fair are extremely effective at attracting customers far beyond the confines of the fair. More than 80% of businesses regard online communications and online media as important for their marketing activities. However, only half of those interviewed considered onsite promotion during the trade fair to be important, yet only a quarter actually carried it out.
Interestingly, only 31% of exhibitors make use of social media, 18% use search engine marketing, and 8% use mobile advertising. In the fields of social media, search engine marketing, and video and mobile, modern marketing tools see little use. Only 8% of the companies involved with the Trade Fair Frankfurt actually make use of this video material.
For more information on this topic, the study "Communicating Trade Fairs" by Dexperty (German language) provides further insights.
In this shifting landscape of trade fairs like Prolight + Sound, where experiential marketing formats are favored over digital promotion, companies are emphasizing face-to-face interaction and live experiences in the finance sector of businesses related to the professional audio and entertainment industry. The organization's provision of hybrid formats and digital tools for networking and lead generation, such as event apps, can affect technology-based marketing strategies, with the use of modern tools like social media, search engine marketing, and mobile advertising remaining relatively low among exhibitors.
