What if trade shows aren’t for lead generation anymore?
We need to talk about trade shows.
More specifically, we need to talk about what happens after trade shows. It’s post ISE 2026 and right now, Pro AV sales and marketing teams across the globe are staring at spreadsheets with hundreds—maybe thousands—of “leads” from the show floor. Badge scans from the giveaway. Email addresses collected at the cocktail hour. Names captured during the demo. QR codes scanned for the “free industry report” that’s just a thinly veiled sales pitch. Contact info exchanged with someone who thought your booth was actually your competitor’s booth. Sign-ups from people who just wanted to sit down in your lounge chairs for five minutes. The guy who asked if you had any charging cables. (You get the picture.)
And here’s the question nobody wants to ask out loud: How many of these will actually close?
If you’ve been in this industry long enough, you already know the answer. Maybe one or two, if you’re lucky. Possibly zero. The person who grabbed your branded Yeti tumbler? They’re not returning calls. The person who watched your immersive LED demo? They were just killing time between meetings. The person who gave you their business card for a chance to win an iPad? They work in marketing, not integration.
We’ve all been here before. We spend six figures on booth space, product demos, swag, and “booth experiences.” We measure success in foot traffic and badge scans. We celebrate hitting our “lead goals.” Then six months later, we can’t point to a single deal that originated at the show.
So why do we keep pretending trade shows are lead generation engines?
The lead gen Llie
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: Trade shows aren’t lead gen channels. They never were. We just convinced ourselves they should be because we needed to justify the expense.
Think about it. When someone walks a trade show floor, what are they doing? They’re browsing. Exploring. Getting a lay of the land. They’re in research mode, not buying mode. They might not even have budget approved yet. They might not have a project at all.
Now think about what we do to them. We scan their badge. We mark them as an MQL. We throw them into a nurture sequence. We hand them to sales with the expectation that they’re “warm.” Then we wonder why conversion rates are abysmal.
The problem isn”t the leads. The problem is that we’re trying to force trade shows into a lead generation box they were never meant to fit.
What trade shows are actually good for
Strip away the lead gen fantasy, and trade shows become something much more valuable:
Product launches where experience matters. You can’t sell an immersive videowall experience over email. You can’t convey the clarity of a new LED panel in a spec sheet. Some products need to be seen, touched, experienced. Trade shows are unmatched for that.
Brand presence and market positioning. In Pro AV, if you’re not at the major shows, people assume you’re either irrelevant or struggling. Your booth size, your location, your presence signal where you sit in the market hierarchy. That’s not lead gen. That’s brand building.
Deepening existing relationships. Your best use of a trade show isn’t the stranger who wanders into your booth. It’s the customer you’ve been emailing for six months who finally gets to meet your team face-to-face. It’s the partner who sees your new product roadmap over dinner. It’s the integrator who brings three of their teammates to your private demo.
Competitive intelligence. Where else can you see what every competitor is launching, where they’re investing, and how they’re positioning themselves—all in a few days?
Recruiting. Half the industry is at these shows. If you’re hiring, you’re not going to find a better talent pool.
The provocation: What if you stopped counting leads entirely?
Imagine going to your next major trade show with completely different success metrics:
20 deep conversations with existing customers about their roadmaps
5 strategic partnership discussions that lead to co-development opportunities
1 product launch that generates genuine industry buzz (not just booth traffic)
Your sales team actually enjoying the event instead of dreading the follow-up hell
No lead goals. No badge scan quotas. No giveaways designed to manufacture foot traffic.
Would your CFO have a heart attack? Probably. But here’s the thing: you might actually be able to demonstrate ROI. Because instead of pretending that 500 random badge scans will turn into pipeline, you’d be measuring things that actually matter: brand lift, relationship depth, strategic opportunities created.
The MQL/SQL framework doesn’t work here
Part of the problem is that we’re using the wrong scoring system. Someone who stops by your booth isn’t an MQL. They’re not even in your funnel yet. They’re in discovery mode.
Marketing Qualified Lead implies intent. It implies fit. It implies some level of active interest in solving a problem you can help with. A person who scanned their badge for a chance to win AirPods has none of those things.
Maybe we need a completely different framework for trade show contacts:
Trade show aware: They know you exist now. That’s it.
Trade show interested: They asked meaningful questions or requested follow-up on something specific.
Trade show qualified: They have a project, a timeline, and a reason to continue the conversation.
Most of your badge scans are Trade Show Aware. That’s fine. That’s brand building. Just don’t hand them to sales and call them leads.
What this means for how you show up
If you accept that trade shows aren’t a lead gen play, it changes how you approach everything:
Your booth design shifts from “attract maximum foot traffic” to “create meaningful experiences for the right people.” Maybe you don’t need the photo booth with branded props. Maybe you do need a private demo area for serious conversations.
Your team’s focus shifts from “scan as many badges as possible” to “have 10 substantive conversations per day.” Quality over quantity isn’t just a platitude; it becomes your operating model.
Your follow-up shifts from “nurture these MQLs” to “continue the relationships that actually started.” The person who spent 20 minutes asking technical questions about your control system? They get a personal follow-up. The person who grabbed a stress ball and left? They get added to your newsletter. Maybe.
Your measurement shifts from vanity metrics to business impact. Not “we got 500 leads” but “we deepened 30 customer relationships, launched a product that's now in 12 evaluations, and started a partnership that could be worth seven figures.”
The question you should be asking
Here’s what it comes down to: If you couldn’t count leads at all, would you still go to trade shows?
If the answer is no, you might be going for the wrong reasons.
If the answer is yes (because of the brand visibility, the product showcases, the relationship building, the market intelligence), then you’re going for the right reasons. You just need to stop pretending it’s about lead generation.
Trade shows aren’t broken. Our expectations are.
Maybe it’s time to let go of the lead gen fantasy and start measuring what actually matters.