Oct 1, 2026 · 28 min · 8 segments
After nearly 17 years in the trade show industry, Robyn Davis has picked up countless insights from advising exhibitors, and now, she's sharing actionable tips and frameworks in her new book, "Exhibit…
Juanita Chavarro AriasHostDid you have the opportunity to reflect on your early career and be like, "When I first started, I would've loved to have-" ... known this, to have had this guide and, like, kind of pull out those insights? Or have things kind of changed so much that you're like, "Nevermind." [laughs] It's, it's different now.
A good amount of the, like the very first chapter, the very first couple pages, I'm telling little stories from my first few trade shows and my experience early on that I still see today.
So I, I won't spoil the chapter, but I will say one of the things I talk about is standing in the aisle and watching a booth crash down beside me.
... how, how hard that is for the people who come, and they get this set up, and they're real excited to have these conversations.
But the big takeaway, again, there's lots of takeaways so not spoiling anything too big, when your booth crashes down, what I observed in these exhibitors is that they just step to the side and continue their conversation.
And that's a lot of what we see in trade shows is just this mentality of we only have these few days together.
There's lots of things we can do before and after to support our efforts, but while we're in our convention city, while we're in our booth, we have to focus, and we have to stay involved and engaged in what we're doing because it's the only chance we have.
You just step to the side and keep doing what you're doing and then handle all of the broken glass or whatever it might be-
So one of your goals with the book is to help exhibitors see what's possible.
Something we've been seeing in our interviews and reporting is that experienced exhibitors are usually doing things the traditional way.
Did you have the opportunity to reflect on your early career and be like, "When I first started, I would've loved to have-" ... known this, to have had this guide and, like, kind of pull out those insights? Or have things kind of changed so much that you're like, "Nevermind." [laughs] It's, it's different now.
A good amount of the, like the very first chapter, the very first couple pages, I'm telling little stories from my first few trade shows and my experience early on that I still see today.
So I, I won't spoil the chapter, but I will say one of the things I talk about is standing in the aisle and watching a booth crash down beside me.
... how, how hard that is for the people who come, and they get this set up, and they're real excited to have these conversations.
But the big takeaway, again, there's lots of takeaways so not spoiling anything too big, when your booth crashes down, what I observed in these exhibitors is that they just step to the side and continue their conversation.
And that's a lot of what we see in trade shows is just this mentality of we only have these few days together.
There's lots of things we can do before and after to support our efforts, but while we're in our convention city, while we're in our booth, we have to focus, and we have to stay involved and engaged in what we're doing because it's the only chance we have.
You just step to the side and keep doing what you're doing and then handle all of the broken glass or whatever it might be-
So one of your goals with the book is to help exhibitors see what's possible.
Something we've been seeing in our interviews and reporting is that experienced exhibitors are usually doing things the traditional way.
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