Virtual Trade Show Ideas for Increased Engagement 

A number of virtual trade show ideas might come to mind if you were to sit and brainstorm some options to engage and entertain a wide audience. If hosting a virtual trade show is something that you’ve always dreamed about, you’re about to be incredibly inspired! These virtual trade show ideas for increased engagement are based on exemplary research and our past experience in film production and the live production of trade show events that Beverly Boy Productions actively engages in all year around.

We’ve put together a list of opportunities that you can actively engage in to drive interest and increase consumer interaction in your virtual trade shows. You might not immediately think of some of these different games and interactive activities for a virtual trade show, but as soon as you let your mind start thinking outside the box, you’ll quickly some up with a variety of exhibits, games, and virtual activities that you can share with your virtual attendees in order to get the excitement and hype flowing around your virtual event.

1. Scavenger Hunts

A scavenger hunt is something that can be done virtually even if you have attendees from different locations attending the event. Just make sure that you keep the elements of the scavenger hunt generalized enough that anyone could find them, regardless of their location. For instance, you would want to have items on the scavenger hunt that are not likely to be at people’s homes if you expect the majority of your attendees to be present from a home setting.

Consider making many of the scavenger hunt elements that you include being those which can be found within the virtual trade show platform. For instance, you might make the attendees hunt for specific elements of a presentation or keynote speech, an element that was present in an advertisement, or something similarly related to the trade show that can be found within the event platform.

2. Brand Puzzles

Having your attendees solve brand puzzles is another great way to increase audience engagement at your event even when were talking about a virtual trade show. Ideas like this involve the use of online puzzles to break the ice, introduce audience members to each other and increase their engagement by having them work together on puzzles during webinars or during breakout sessions. 

Consider introducing puzzles at various stages and during various times of the virtual trade show event in order to drive engagement throughout the event. There are all sorts of puzzles that you can include. Ask your virtual trade show production crew about including puzzles and other interactive polls in your trade show.

3. Virtual Polls

Polls are a great opportunity to increase engagement at virtual trade shows. In fact, one of the first virtual trade show ideas we had was in regards to the use of polls to increase the ability for attendees to interact and learn about each other as a group. While you don’t have to share individual audience poll details, sharing the final details about the group, such as “55% of the group said…” or something along those lines will help the group to understand better what others around the are like. Polls are also fun because they allow vendors and exhibitors to gather information from attendees for future marketing and advertising.

4. Virtual Spin the Wheel

Another one of the amazing virtual trade show ideas we had was virtual spin the wheel. This helps you increase engagement by giving audience members virtual spins for things like:

• Attending a vendor booth.
• Watching an exhibitor film.
• Engaging in a poll.
• Interacting with another attendee virtually through the platform.

The ways that you can incorporate the virtual spin the wheel are really limitless, but attendees love the idea of getting points or free gifts for spinning the wheel. Consider allowing attendees to add up their points to turn them in for a prize at the end of the trade show event.

Customize the wheel so that it includes your corporate branding and messaging too! This way your audience will not only engage, but they’ll have brand recognition as a result.

5. Virtual Show and Tell

A great way to get audiences engaged with one another, plan a virtual show and tell in which attendees are asked to show and tell things about themselves, their businesses, or similar events. If this doesn’t work, have vendors and exhibitors do the show and tell where they show audiences their important elements and features and offer audiences gifts or prizes for interaction within the group.

6. Virtual Bingo Hall

Finally, the last of our virtual trade show ideas is the virtual bingo hall. This is where you will have your attendees come together to play a round (or five) of bingo. You can have virtual bingo cards and host the entire event virtually or the cards could be actual bingo cards that you send to your audience to  print out. The goal, play bingo through a virtual conference room or event webinar so that attendees can interact with one another and win prizes related to the event.