15 Big, Bold Trade Show Ideas from EMS 2025

Trade Shows, EMS 2025, B-to-B Events

Posted on April 27, 2025 by Anna Huddleston

The 23rd annual Experiential Marketing Summit (EMS) brought over 1,500 b-to-b and b-to-c marketers, trade show pros and agency execs to MGM Grand Las Vegas, April 14-16, for three days of inspiration, hands-on learning, and perspectives on what’s shaping event marketing today.

This year, the Summit’s trade show track featured several sessions and events, including those in partnership with The Experiential Designers and Producers Association (EDPA), that offered insight and peer-to-peer sharing on everything from mastering connections in exhibits to slaying budgets to imagining the booths of the future. Here’s a fast and furious digest of just some of the aha ideas—and frustrations—that might apply to your trade show program.

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1. Lean into localization. From event themes to booth design to frothy images on beer, ties to the local scene are trending. For example, for an event in New York, Steno, a legal tech company, built a booth in the style of a subway station featuring a graffiti artist that generated buzz on the floor.

2. Play into the biggest pain of qualified attendees. Knowing that attendees were looking for solutions to their frustration, tech company Cognizant invited attendees to a tech rage room where they could smash old equipment, opening the conversation to solutions.

3. Design engagement for a specific time. If a demo takes 15 minutes, how about a massage chair? Or a churro to sweeten up a 10-minute demo? A serious accessorizing station can buy a long conversation. Then there’s an IV lounge for a truly captive audience.

4. Give photo ops a mission. In highly regulated medical events, the oncology diagnostics company NeoGenomics lured in attendees with a special photo op featuring a 16-foot foliage wall with neon inspirational messaging, with $25 donated to a cancer foundation for every social share.

5. It’s hard to get people to post on social. You’re not alone. It’s hard even with incentives and giveaways. Internally, there can be a fear of doing it incorrectly, while externally, people don’t want to share what’s not perfectly aligned with their personal brand.

6. Negotiate budgets like a pro. If you don’t have a national sales rep, you’re not negotiating, says said Alyson Strickler-Vazquez, senior manager-strategic industry events, client engagement & experience, Cognizant, about negotiating with event venues. Tapping an industry partner as an advocate can also bring negotiating power. Know the worth of your program and come with a partnership mindset for a mutual win.

Up for negotiations should be resort and destination fees, food and beverage, shipping/receiving between 2,000 and 5,000 pounds, discounts on in-house printing and a/v, complimentary WiFi and hardwire lines, free room drops, no fees on outdoor setup, room drops and white walls, and rebates to master. Challenge existing solutions, and offer mutually beneficial alternatives and make your voice the loudest. Negotiate on ideas a venue or property can sell to others.

7. Measure it—treasure it, says Aleka Garcia, senior manager-experiential marketing at Johnson & Johnson Vision. She “flipped the script” on ROI reporting and, knowing that various stakeholders, such as senior leadership, the marketing team, sales team, etc., have different objectives, measures all the KPIs of interest to the stakeholders to show the impact from trade shows and defend the budget.

8. Scans don’t equal quality leads. Many brands merge booth scans into their CRMs and track those prospects through the sales pipeline, but figuring out a system for quality leads for your organization is crucial.

9. Person-agnostic tech helps with analysis and reporting. For brand awareness, RFID tracking of booth traffic and dwell time by companies like FastSensor as well as heat mapping helps supply data for the post-show summary and inform future booth design and engagement decisions. It doesn’t collect personal data, which makes it acceptable in a variety of industries.

10. QR codes are alive and well, even if they feel a little antiquated. Companies are using them to connect attendees with relevant info as well as to get around security opt-outs. Be strategic about where a QR code leads, such as to a product-specific landing page, instead of linking it to the main site that people won’t take the time to navigate.

11. Moving valuable gifts online = expanded choices + drives engagement and leads. Cognizant offered attendees a choice of 15 items, but to get them, attendees had to scan a QR code in the booth and fill out their info.

“I wasn’t giving away a niche item that was going to apply to five percent of people coming into our booth,” says Alyson Strickler-Vazquez. “I offered pizza ovens, I offered everything under the sun for women, men, people that had grandchildren. It was a really great way to capture additional leads, but also I found that getting an important ceo to come by my booth was a lot easier when I was giving him something for a grandchild or his wife.”

12. Hospitality fuels engagement. Custom images on beer foam? Coming right up! From customizable water stations to images on coffee, espresso martinis and beer, there are many opportunities to set the right vibe, build dwell time, and inspire social sharing.

13. Sustainability can start with small steps. For Kelsey Schneider, director-global events and experiences, GE HealthCare, it’s about sitting down with exhibit vendors and understanding the materials and what happens to them post-show. Shifting to a rental program, reevaluating signage, and utilizing processes, such as Brumark’s Flooring Recycling and Recovery Program that diverts flooring materials from waste and contributes to recycled content, all plays a role in building a greener future.

14. Turn it on its head. A video game company took a step back from male consumer trade shows and pivoted toward sponsoring bridal shows instead, where it offered the grooms a perfect escape into man caves stocked with the brand’s new product and games. The controversial idea yielded sky-high results.

15. Tech will be like electricity, but human connection will still rule. From AI agents that streamline workflows to AI-powered experiences that extend well beyond the booth, including custom chatbots and games, the future brings so much opportunity for trade show marketers. Yet the human connection—from the hero’s journeys to activations with a greater purpose—and of course, experiences that make us feel, learn and belong will always be paramount to events that move the world forward.

Image credit: iStock/guoya