Brown Smith Wallace Consulting Group’s First Distribution Virtual Tech Fair™ A Roaring Success

The debut Distribution Virtual Tech Fair™ hosted by the Brown Smith Wallace Consulting Group brought together 24 exhibitors and vendors and offered businesses a new way to reach out to their communities – creating more than 9,000 booth visits throughout the fair and breaking attendance records with more than 86 percent of registrants in attendance.

“We wanted to create a forum that would provide a true tradeshow environment for both the exhibitors and attendees and the Virtual Trade Show recreated the physical show flawlessly,” says Jeff Gusdorf, principal Brown Smith Wallace Consulting Group. “The feedback from everyone has been positive and we look forward to making this a biannual event.”

The complimentary, interactive event took the most successful elements of a live trade show and translated them into the virtual world of the Internet. Attendees enjoyed product demos, event networking, show prizes and educational presentations from industry leaders — all at no cost and in the comfort of their own office or home.

“My experience was great! I thought I'd have trouble accessing the site or navigating it, especially because my computer isn't exactly top-of-the-line. But I had no technical trouble at all. And I was blown away by the design of the "place". It looked and felt like an actual Tech Fair — minus the travel expenses, the days away from the office and the sore feet from all that walking around,” said attendee Heather Cochran of Spenro Industrial Supply.

Communication between exhibitors and attendees also exceeded expectations according to Gusdorf.

“More than 1,400 communications (email, chat, vcards) were exchanged between exhibitors and attendees during the fair. We weren’t sure how distributors would respond to using interactive communication and were pleasantly surprised by the overall volume,” said Gusdorf.

Building on the success of this show, the spring 2007 Distribution Tech Fair is scheduled for April 25 and 26.

About The Fair
Platinum Exhibitors: Activant, Computer Insights, Gillani, IBS, Infor, Integrated Systems Technology, Intuit Eclipse, Microsoft, Sage Software, SAP

Event Sponsors: IBM, Industrial Distribution Magazine, ID Supplier Search, Modern Distribution Management

About Brown Smith Wallace Consulting Group
St. Louis based Brown Smith Wallace Consulting Group, founded in 1976, is an independent, full-service technology consulting firm. For more information visit www.software4distributors.com or call 888.279.2792.
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