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Everyone has a view on this from the company accountant through to those that man the stand. The company accountant is usually just doing his job in telling all the divisions to cut back on expenditure, and conferences and exhibitions are after all not essential, or are they?

This is where the marketing and sales guys come in and make the point that exposure in the marketplace is essential in order to generate leads and consolidate and expand business flows. Exhibitions are their oxygen. As for those manning the stand this task often represents the key motivating factor that makes a job, particularly if international travel is concerned. You can’t escape the human factor.

It is nevertheless difficult to measure precisely the benefit gained from attending an exhibition unless you are one of the lucky few that comes away with a signed contract. Generally speaking, measuring the return is not an exact science if indeed it is a science at all. Sometimes the benefit can arrive literally years later. How many times have you heard people say attending conferences and exhibitions is about planting seeds? Seeds that, experience shows, sometimes spring up when you least expect it.

In the humble opinion of the author, however, it does take a particular type of individual to “work” an exhibition as opposed to a conference. Tenacity is one essential attribute, stamina another and probably also what the English call “front” – that something extra that gets you in front of all the right people. And unless you are one of these individuals , you probably find these people irritating. “Can you get off this stand so I can at last get to talk to this guy” – how many of us have been there?

Still I guess if you have got it then you should flaunt it, indeed at an exhibition this is to a large extent the name of the game. So bottom line when you get down to assessing whether or not your organisation should be at a particular exhibition you have to make sure that you go there with the personnel that will get you the return.

Other important basics include making sure the overall profile of an event is right for you, that new and potential clients are attending and that if you are actually exhibiting that you have the right spot and are not obscured from view by a huge pillar! Cover such basics and you will positively leverage your return.

Conferences as opposed to exhibitions are by their very nature more cerebral and to some extent they are simpler to assess regarding attending. The conference programme is a key element and there should also be a delegate list available – if the organiser tells you there isn’t then push for it. These two elements alone can tell you an awful lot about whether this conference or that conference is the one for you.

In these days and times, there are also two other influential factors – firstly, the potential of an event to positively impact revenue earning capability and/or to reduce costs, and secondly remembering that size isn’t everything.

There is a strong argument for the smaller focused event where the incidence of crossing tracks with the people that interest you is higher. Such events often build a camera die that the larger event cannot offer – the number of business cards you collect is not always an appropriate measure.