The real issue with the modern business is how the business makes connection with its customers. It is not simply about buying and selling. It is not simply about trading. It is how you understand what your customers and potential customers want. What their challenges are. What their opportunities are and how you as a service or product provider interact with that. The key issue, the key word, therefore, for me is engagement. How do you as a part of that community, as a part of that industry, as a part of that market place, engage with that community and with your customers and that is why it needs to be in the live environment. You simply cannot engage to that extent in any other media. Want to engage via an advertisement on a magazine page - you can't. Want to do it on a web site - you cannot genuinely engage. The only place you can genuinely engage is in the live space, in an exhibition hall, at an event where people come together, talk, dialogue, share experiences, share ideas, open up. Most business is thinking about how it advances its relationship with its customers and its market and I see exhibitions as a hot house for the advancement of that relationship.
