For years, regardless of what actually took place during a market, the story that the trade press would report was remarkably predictable—“Traffic was mixed, but order writing was strong.”
On the rare occasion when a show was really lacking, you could bet your last dollar that somewhere in the story, usually in the first paragraph, an exhibitor would state, “Traffic was down, but I saw and sold the buyers I needed to see.”
Today, thanks to the immediacy of social media and to the fact that everyone with a smartphone deems him-or herself a journalist, there’s much more transparency regarding every event, including trade shows.
