Let’s Go Outside!

By Denise Capello, Head of Business Development, RAI Amsterdam.

Perhaps more than ever in this age of online interaction and communities, physical exhibitions and conferences offer a major asset that the virtual world cannot: genuine human contact. How can exhibition organisers best use their physical location to optimize matchmaking and knowledge transfer? How do you ensure that visitors and exhibitors return home inspired by useful, new experiences?

The way people process information is changing fundamentally. While we all considered it normal a decade or so ago to gather around the TV at a certain time for a certain program, today we watch what, when and where we want. Most exhibitions are actually the hub of a community which is active throughout the year and exhibitors communicate via their own online channels. Yet this virtual activity serves merely to reinforce their interest in physical events, as people who communicate via internet…