Editorial Note: This blog is the third in a five-part series. Click on the links to catch up on previous installments of the series: Part 1 and Part 2.
There’s a reason Expo! Expo! IAEE’s Annual Meeting & Exhibition is the ONE EPIC EVENT exhibitions and events professionals make sure they attend. It’s the rare room where the people setting the strategy, designing the experience and crunching the data gather to trade what’s actually working and what’s coming around the bend. Every session offers a chance to walk out with a sharper playbook and every hallway conversation has the potential to turn into your next great idea, partnership or hire.
Last year’s lineup was no exception, and the sessions that filled the Forward Thinking learning track were some of the most future-focused of the week. Whether you’re catching up on what you missed or revisiting your favorite takeaways, here’s where we pick back up.
Forward Thinking: Innovations and Insights Shaping the Future
The sessions featured in this installment fall under the Forward Thinking: Innovations and Insights Shaping the Future learning track. Curated to equip participants with forward-thinking perspectives relevant to workforce development, data analysis, and the trends and research shaping the future of exhibitions and trade shows, this track gave attendees valuable tools and insights to effectively adapt their events, ensuring they remain ahead of the curve and consistently deliver value to their stakeholders. Let’s revisit three sessions that pushed the industry to think bigger about what comes next.
Stronger Together: The Power of Partnership in Events
Presented by Jennifer D. Collins, CMP, President & CEO, JDC Events
As organizers face rising costs, shifting audience expectations and limited resources, the traditional event model is no longer sustainable on its own. That was the premise Jennifer Collins built her session around, making the case that partnership – when done strategically – isn’t just a supplement to events, it’s a catalyst for innovation, reach and revenue. Drawing on more than 25 years in business and real-world examples from her own portfolio of events, Jennifer challenged organizers to reframe collaboration as a future-ready growth strategy rather than a one-off tactic.
Partnerships Pay Off in More Than Just Dollars
Jennifer opened by widening the lens on what a partnership can deliver. Beyond sponsorships and co-branded events, she introduced the 4 R’s of Partnership:
- Revenue
- Reach (cross-promotion to new audiences)
- Relevance (access to expertise, credibility or market share)
- Resilience (shared costs and risk mitigation)
Her key takeaway landed hard: partnerships can be growth catalysts even without funding attached, which opens the door for far more organizations than budget alone would suggest.
The Right Fit Matters More Than the Right Logo
Not every potential partner is the right partner. Jennifer walked attendees through a set of critical success factors to evaluate fit, including:
- Shared purpose or overlapping audience
- Complementary capabilities, such as technology, expertise or brand equity
- Long-term potential rather than just a short-term win
She illustrated this in action through a case study on the Equipped Mid-Atlantic Technology Summit, where months of dialogue between JDC Events and Lexipol Media Group led to a partnership built on shared goals, expanded marketing and media reach, subject matter expertise and collaborative agenda building, resulting in increased revenue, a larger audience and a roadmap for future expansion.
Sponsorships Evolve Into Partnerships When You Earn It
Jennifer closed with what she called the “partnership formula,” the steps that turn a transactional sponsor into a strategic, long-term ally:
- Understand their goals
- Co-create value
- Deliver measurable ROI and ROE
- Engage year-round
- Build real relationships
She acknowledged the barriers organizers commonly face, such as risk-aversion, ROI uncertainty and limited resources, and offered practical ways past them, including:
- Sharing industry benchmarks
- Framing partnerships as resilience strategies rather than added expenses
- Using small pilot programs to build internal trust before scaling.
The Bottom Line
Jennifer’s session was a reminder that organizers don’t have to do it all alone, and often shouldn’t. Strategic partnerships, when built on alignment and sustained with intention, can extend an event’s reach, diversify its revenue and strengthen its resilience against the pressures every organizer is feeling right now. As she put it, partnerships aren’t optional add-ons, they’re a future-ready growth strategy.
The Science Behind the Experience: Research-Driven Strategies to Maximize Attendee Engagement
Presented by Jessica Wiitala, Ph.D., MBA, CMM, Assistant Professor of Event Management, High Point University
What makes an experience memorable, persuasive and transformational? Jessica Wiitala set out to answer that question by examining how attendees process, accept and retain trade show messages through a behavioral science and experience design lens.
Drawing on foundational theories such as McGuire’s Information Processing Model, the Experience Economy, flow theory, servicescape and symbolic interactionism, Jessica connected theory to practice through strategies like gamification, co-creation, tension and contrast, and multisensory design, tracing the attendee’s cognitive journey from stimulus all the way to retention.
Attention Is the First Hurdle, and Most Booths Don’t Clear It
Jessica opened with a sobering statistic: the brain filters roughly 90% of incoming stimuli, which means most booths are competing for a sliver of an attendee’s attention before any message even has a chance to land. She walked through McGuire’s Information Processing Model, a six-stage framework:
- Exposure
- Attention
- Comprehension
- Acceptance
- Retention
- Memory
She emphasized that each stage is a hurdle beginning with Attention: if you lose an attendee at one stage, you lose them overall. This is why intentional design at every step matters far more than a single eye-catching display.
The Richest Experiences Combine Multiple Realms and Trigger Flow
Pulling from “The Experience Economy: Compelling Experiences That Go Beyond Mere Services” (Pine & Gilmore, 1999), Jessica introduced the four experience realms:
- Entertainment
- Education
- Escapism
- Aesthetics
She noted that most booths sit in just one, usually entertainment or education, when the richest experiences combine all four. She paired this with flow theory, explaining that engagement deepens when challenge matches skill level. Her data point on this was striking: booths using flow-based design see two to three times longer dwell time than those that don’t, a clear signal that variety and progressive challenge keep attendees invested longer.
Multisensory Design and Gamification Are the Highest-Impact, Most Measurable Levers
Jessica closed with evidence-based strategies attendees could implement immediately. Multisensory activations can increase brand lift threefold and improve recall by 30–70%, while gamification increases dwell time by two times and lead scanning by three times, according to Center for Exhibition Industry (CEIR) research, with 77% of organizations reporting improved user experience as a result.
She tied it all together with a Theory-Strategy Matrix that maps specific goals, such as the ones below, to the tactics best suited to achieve them:
- Exposure
- Attention
- Comprehension
- Acceptance
- Retention
- Behavior
The Bottom Line
Jessica’s session reframed experience design as a science, not just an art. Organizations that apply behavioral science principles to their trade show presence don’t just improve engagement, they transform how attendees perceive their brand, accelerate trust-building and drive measurable business outcomes. For organizers, the takeaway is clear: understanding the why behind a strategy makes it possible to adapt it, measure it and continuously improve it.
Accelerating Growth with Experience-Driven Innovation: Imagination Way
Presented by Kristen Griffith, Senior Vice President of Member Experience, NAMA (National Automatic Merchandising Association); Chris Price, Chief Strategy Officer, Tradeshow Logic; and Julie Smith, CEM-AP, CEM Fellow, CTA, Senior Vice President of Business Development, GES (Global Experience Specialists)
When faced with the challenge of attracting new audiences and energizing the show floor, NAMA launched a bold new concept: Imagination Way, a curated experience featuring fully functioning, future-focused environments. In this collaborative case study, the project team – representing the association, the experience design firm and the strategy partner behind the activation – walked through how they jointly identified new market opportunities, curated unique participants and designed an interactive environment that delivered meaningful business outcomes for the show.
New Markets Start with Strategic Curation, Not Just Bigger Booths
Rather than simply expanding the show floor, the team strategically curated exhibitors and sponsors from sectors that had never been part of a traditional NAMA show, including college and university facilities, hospitality, large residential, transit stations, hospitals and airports. By identifying seven key sector areas and inviting attendees from related ancillary audience groups, they opened the show to entirely new buyers and exhibitors, a deliberate strategy to drive new exhibitors, new attendees and new dollars, not just more of the same.
Real-Time, Cross-Functional Collaboration Was the Engine Behind the Design
The design process itself became a model for cross-functional collaboration. NAMA, Tradeshow Logic and GES brought designers directly into shared working sessions using a Miro board, allowing the client and creative teams to review concepts, give feedback and make adjustments together in real time. That approach shaped everything from entrance treatments and traffic flow to flexible, reusable design elements that could adapt as the show moved to new cities and the space sales evolved year over year.
The Results Made the Case for Continued Investment
The numbers told the story. Imagination Way attendance grew from 56 participants in its 2022 debut to 165 in 2025, with the most recent year alone delivering a 41% increase in sponsorship and exhibitor revenue tied to the activation. The team’s lessons learned reinforced what made it work: a dynamic experience area must offer value above and beyond the rest of the exhibit hall, it must be highly visible and easy to navigate, and consistent use of post-event data is what allows the strategy to be refined and strengthened every year.
The Bottom Line
This session was proof that a bold concept, backed by the right partners and a willingness to take a smart risk, can transform not just a space but an entire event. Imagination Way didn’t just energize the exhibition floor, it opened new revenue streams and expanded NAMA’s audience in ways the traditional exhibit hall couldn’t. For organizers eyeing their own next big idea, it’s a case study in what’s possible when curation, collaboration and experience design come together with a shared goal.
Looking Ahead
As we look ahead to Expo! Expo! IAEE’s Annual Meeting & Exhibition 2026 taking place 16-18 November in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, these sessions are a reminder that the future of this industry is built through the partnerships formed, the science they apply and the bold ideas they’re willing to bet on. Expo! Expo! is where these concepts get sharpened, tested and brought to life.
