ASIS Misrepresents Show Numbers

How much pre-show marketing are these unhappy manufacturers doing?  At the end of the day it is a company's job to drive traffic to their own booth.  There are a large number of people at these shows, if no one comes to your booth that is your fault.

John, thanks for this. I was wondering about the comparision after ASIS.

ISC has, at least by perception, been targeted to integrators and industry pros not end users. Since ISC has added more education and seems to be increasing the effort to shake that perception, I wonder which show is better at attracting the end user. And does that even matter to the exhibitors? After all, for the most part integrators are their customers, right?

Also, let's not forget that at ISC and ASIS, many exhibitors are also potential customers of other exhibitors. At ASIS 2016, Stanley and Securitas (Diebold) had large booths with lots of staff and many of those folks take the first chance they can to visit the manufacturer booths.

So, what number matters most to the exhibitor I suppose depends on what you are pedaling. Certainly, if I need to make a case to spend the money at only one of these shows I want more information not less. If you can only compare the two totals then wouldn't you want the bigger bang for the buck!

From another perspective, which show do I choose to attend? I used to prefer ISC even as an end user because I wanted to get more technical with the products and found it easier to get more face time with knowledgeable people. At the last ISC I found that most of the booths were staffed with sales and marketing people and less product folks. ISC's heavy attendance makes it hard to compete for the attention of someone to answer questions. I actually got more product knowledge from ASIS than ISC in 2016 which is a first. Maybe it was just bad luck.

I like ASIS show better than ISC West, like to go to different places, I don't care for Vegas, long flight, time change.  I will continue to go to ASIS shows as long as they have them and hope exhibitors do too!   

From a vendor point of view regarding ISC's staying power: the Vegas aspect - and the convenience of "The Devil you know" cannot be underestimated. There are hotel rooms aplenty (many priced at affordable rates), lots of choice for meeting and/or entertainment venues, all located in a concentrated space. Plus, people like to go there. There, I've said it. 

ASIS is reasonably priced. By contrast, ISC is very expensive, which makes it hard for the little guy, and the exhibition hall layout is also unforgiving. The layouts at ASIS used to be a more democratic mix of large and small vendors, but they now seem to have taken a page from the ISC playbook, shunting small companies to the sidelines. 

To get a better on-floor location, one option is to share a booth but be forewarned: Reed/ISC has raised their "booth participation fee" from $1000 a few years ago to $3000 - a hefty increase! 

ASIS continues to misrepresents its numbers in a new marketing brochure: