Exhibit managers spend endless hours wrangling logistics. And rightfully so, as you need to transport your booth to the show, set it up, staff it, and pack up the whole shebang for the next iteration. Of course, you also must tackle tactical and strategic elements such as lead management, traffic flow, and space selection, to name a few. But at the end of the day, what value do these components deliver if no attendees actually set foot in your booth?

While ineffective essentials such as poor staffers and a clogged traffic flow can certainly repel attendees, effectively executing these same elements rarely draws people to your stand. After all, when's the last time you heard a showgoer exclaim, "Wow! Would you look at that lead-retrieval machine?"

Clearly, what makes trade show attendees break the plane of your perimeter has less to do with logistics and more to do with potent promotional tactics. It's your in-booth escape room, customized T-shirt giveaway, and tchotchke vending machine that draw them in. And it's the chance to test their veggie-chopping skills against a "Top Chef" contender and the prospect of playing pingpong against a robot that attendees can't resist. So if you want your target audience to seek out your booth, you need some powerful promos.

To highlight the impact of effective promotions and give readers tested strategies to add to their face-to-face marketing arsenals, EXHIBITOR offers its annual Sizzle Awards. The 2019 competition was judged by marketing and promotions experts who scrutinized entries in nine categories. Their assignment was to identify entries that met two criteria: 1) a level of inventiveness rivaling that of Edison, and 2) measurable results that prove the promo was more than mere fun and games.

This year's jurors identified five winners that combined lightbulb moments with radical results. Projects included everything from a FaceTime-like activation that connected booth visitors to rural dairy farmers to a mood-board product demo that helped interior designers envision how custom appliances could complement their creations. Perhaps more importantly, however, these projects also garnered measurable results, ranging from an almost 38-percent uptick in media coverage to a 62-percent surge in qualified leads. So please join us in congratulating this year's winners and read on to learn how they used the power of promotions to reap serious success. E

The Winners Derse Inc. Hill's Pet Nutrition Inc. Organic Valley Exhibitus Inc. GE Appliances

The Judges Bill Bissmeyer vice president, operations and business development, Performance Marketing Group, Noblesville, IN Katharine Chestnut CTSM, co-founder and chief community officer, Alkaloid Networks, Atlanta Kassidy Gala Carpenter manager of trade shows and events, World Fuel Services Corp., Tampa, FL Greg Schneider chief customer office marketing director, Dell Inc., Austin, TX Vanessa Schultz CTSM, senior manager, population genomics community architect, Illumina Inc., San Diego Jason Vickers CTSM, manager of trade shows and events, Verizon Enterprise Solutions, Madison, AL Patrick West founder, Be the Machine, New York