Bigger Event with Less Money or even Making Money

A small company held a big exhibition to attract 2000 attendees without spending a dime afterwards and even make money in the end.

Back in 1998-1999, while Internet is hot and ISP started to build IDC (Internet datacenter), how to build an IDC became a hot topic in the industry. Cabletron Taiwan at that time is a small company with 5 staffs, comparatively small than his components. Before separating into Enterasys and Riverstone, Cabletron developed and integrated new IDC solution, which was quite new in Taiwan market. The total solution required many different solutions from different vendors, which is one reason the IDC solution is so complicated. To build our reputation on IDC, we boldly host a 2 days IDC exhibition to invite 2000 attendees in the industry and 30+ different sponsors including some ISP's, Server vendors, and networking solution vendors. In the end, we reached our target attendees and sponsors no., so we not only get awareness, but also make more marketing fund out of it. It was quite good experience that we need to find target customers and attract other vendors to take money out of their pocket. I recalled the key successful reason is because of the "heat" of Internet, and we just rode on the wave. Can this practice be replicable? Yes, as long as you feel the "heat" and take bold move. Haha..