Trade Show Trauma

Trade shows and exhibitions - the very phrase makes grown men cry and grown women want to get pregnant and give up work. In any one year, every hack, PR poppet and corporate suit-wearer will be subjected to the pain (mental and physical) of any one of the following: Arabian Travel Market; Cityscape; or GITEX - and the lucky few get the treble.

I've yet to discover who benefits from trade shows, apart from the hotels, and the poor staff at Cafe Convention in the Dubai International Convention Centre (DICC), who are run ragged, but sell lots of double strength espressos every morning. Local companies are only there because they have to be; ditto for journalists and PRs, who detest the shows. There are no good stories, the media limit their visits to a 90 second flurry in and out of the press centre, and the clients start complaining about coverage when they should be focusing on meeting with investors or key clients.

So, for every grey-faced suit that you see over town this month, be glad you too haven't been subjected to Trade Show Trauma.