For those members of the public wanting to join us in the rabbit hole of floorplan management, this is dedicated to you. 

Is creating a floorplan Easy or Difficult? … Difficult, without a doubt. 

Actually, floorplan management is one of the most time-consuming and complex task when organizing a tradeshow/event, such as Catfish & Crappie Conference.

As an event grow, the time of “copy paste” is over. We receive more and more feedback based on the thousands of people walking in the show, the exhibitors, the venue, the vendors, security and other third parties involved with the execution of the event. When you layer all of this, you get an initial floorplan that needs to be reviewed and approved by the convention center. 

That initial floorplan will serve as baseline for exhibitors to size their booths based on their prediction of expected growth, marketing needs and traffic exposure desires.

Then, we consider if the brand is catfish or crappie-oriented; if the activity noise levels are high, you must keep it away from the stage area. And, of course, you want to ensure that the types of services and goods are not clustered in one specific area since this is a consumer-oriented event and not a b2b show. Then, the exhibitors will choose who they would like or not next to them. We do our best to consider every stakeholder’s wishes, which leads to floorplan management being the most time and energy-consuming task in the planning phase of the event. 

In summary, handling the floorplan is the equivalent of organizing a gigantic Thanksgiving family dinner on steroids, where you invite half of your town, close to a hundred exhibitors from all over the states, avoid allergies, accommodate food preferences, and keep everyone’s glass full at all times. Welcome to the Catfish Conference Kitchen!