Checking in from the sunny and 107 degree Las Vegas, Nevada where the NXTComm tradeshow was held this week. All of the usual suspects carted their fancy booths, big staffs [armed with the latest and greatest corporate messages], various SWAG items, press kits and demo equipment into the heart of Sin City.

Word from vendors is that overall show attendance was a “mixed bag” and while the show seemed busy, several exhibiting vendors lamented that the quality of attendee or for short–QoA–left something to be desired. I suspect that this means that average foot traffic is approximately 15-20% “true” prospects for the solution that vendor happens to be trying to sell. The rest of the human traffic includes competing vendors [dressed incognito sans the normal logo’d golf shirts], business development folks, partners, staff, press/analysts and various other riff-raff. I saw an adorable older couple, must’ve been in their mid-80s, laboring around from booth to booth collecting vendor SWAG items including those squishy stress balls, flashing lapel pins, pens, and boxes of mints…..I guess it’s more interesting than walking around a mall.

My personal opinion is that smaller vendors with scarce marketing resources can find much better bang for the buck out there to drive lead generation. Educational webinars come to mind here, Yankee Group often has several hundred attendees show up and even more register with their contact details and interest areas. At NXTComm, the no-frills exhibitors are promptly rewarded with awful floor location and non-descript signage which in turn guarantees that they are left wanting for any traffic at all. Even this guy. Not sure how to fix this, but another strategy I’ve seen work well is making the lower-cost investment in an adjacent hotel suite or meeting room which allows the advantage of the common assembly of partners, customers, press and analysts without incurring the big expenses of an actual exhibit.

I’m betting that this show survives, if only because its among the last games in town which a singular focus on the telecom industry. A piece of advice for show organizers that one of my colleagues pointed out—get rid of the 3rd show day, its overkill and three days is too long to be away from the office/real job. Keep an eye out for my show re-cap which will be published for Yankee Group clients within a couple days.