Trade Shows Archives - Chief Marketer

Whoop’s Marketing Shift Drives Hypergrowth and Demand Planning Woes

The brand’s marketing pivot to everyday consumers fueled 85% member growth and a surprise 300,000-unit holiday order. Here’s how the health wearable is retooling operations to keep pace.

Trade Shows

Our Top 5 Experiential Trends from Dreamforce 2026

The park rangers are gone, and so is the canoe. Dreamforce 2026, Salesforce’s annual flagship user conference in San Francisco, still had the camp vibe, but felt more like a reunion before a space launch. On the ground at Dreampark, we discovered how AI innovation is inspiring an evolution in the storied event’s theming.

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How Outdoor Retailer 2026 Took the Show Outside

On the final morning of Outdoor Retailer in Minneapolis, dozens of participants and volunteers gathered at Theodore Wirth Park for the inaugural 57hours Adventure Race, a 90-minute orienteering course built with the Minnesota Orienteering Club and supported by The Loppet Foundation. As OR attendees and content creators were getting ready to explore the “urban outdoors,” […]

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Trade Shows

Beyond Wellness: 5 Ways Trade Shows and Events Show They Care

It wasn’t that long ago when goat yoga on the trade show floor was the GOAT. Seeing your boss doing a downward dog at 6 a.m. was somehow a healthy thing to do. And bailing out on dinner because your sensory overload was real and you couldn’t deal with your colleagues anymore was plain rude. […]

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Roots, Reach and AI: Inside 2026 Outdoor Retailer’s Minneapolis Reboot

With over 40 years as a top gathering space for the outdoor industry, Outdoor Retailer 2026 banked on its new Minneapolis location to deliver an experience that would excite retailers and brands in a rapidly changing landscape. Owned and produced by Forge, the show brought more than 1,800 attendees and 275 exhibiting brands Aug. 19-21 […]

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Experiential Marketing Trend of the Week: Eye Contact

This year, storytelling has propelled from buzzword to standard practice. As event marketers lean into it for their messaging to deepen relationships with audiences and “drop” products into real lives, human faces are serving as design themes across show floors. Let’s take a look at how eye contact is the new eye candy. But first, […]

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6 Brands That Unleashed Experiential at SuperZoo 2026

If you’ve never squeezed a poop-in-a-bag squishy or considered a calming mousse for your cat, you’ve never been to SuperZoo. Hosted by the World Pet Association (WPA), SuperZoo is the largest pet products marketplace in North America. The 2026 edition took place at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas on Aug. 12-14, bringing […]

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Trade Shows

3 Ways Exhibitors Are Tackling Education Through Experience

Attendees would ideally spend 54 percent of their learning time outside traditional session rooms, and at trade shows, that number rises to 64 percent, according a Freeman’s latest Trends Report, “The Future of Adult Learning at Conferences and Trade Shows.” While organizers continue to invest heavily in conference sessions and keynote programming, attendees increasingly value […]

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Quiet, Fast, Sustainable: How Convention Venues Are Leveling Up

From private meeting pods to underground transit upgrades to green certifications, convention venues are raising the bar on the attendee experience. Here’s a look at what’s new at some of the industry’s busiest facilities. Private Meeting Pods at Moscone and GWCC ZenSpace has installed four semi-permanent meeting pods at Moscone Center in San Francisco, giving […]

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Trade Shows

Is Your Exhibit Strategy Ready for the Buyer-First Trade Show Floor?

When US Foods realized that its 15-year-old Food Fanatics show was starting to get too “vanilla,” the food distributor decided to change its approach. For the 2025 event, it completely reimagined its show floor and invited more than 5,000 food service operators, culinary professionals and industry experts to an experience designed around the customer journey, […]

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