Robbie Thain
Founder, CEO
AI-generated illustrative image. Not an official campaign image.
Makai examines a 2027 trade show outlook through product trial, expert staffing, objective-matched measurement and the handoff to relevant follow-up.
On October 16, 2026, Exhibit City News published Denise DiGrigoli’s “Reading the Signals: What clients can expect in 2027.” The page says the story originally appeared in its Q4 2025 issue. Its online publication brings that earlier outlook into the current trade show planning conversation.
DiGrigoli identifies four priorities she believes will influence exhibit and event work in 2027:
The practical argument is about how programs are commissioned and evaluated. Start with the business objective. Then choose an experience and measures that fit it. The article does not argue that technology or large exhibits should disappear.
Exhibit City News reports that 84% of attendees consider access to subject-matter experts extremely or very important. It contrasts that with 26% of exhibitors identifying expert access as a top priority for improving engagement.
The article also says 80% of exhibitors do little or no targeted pre-show marketing and 64% of trade show leads never receive follow-up. It attributes those figures to data shared at an unnamed industry convention.
These percentages lack underlying study names and sample details or methodology, so they are not independently established industry benchmarks. Likewise, the 2027 signals are DiGrigoli’s outlook rather than observed outcomes. Their useful role is to focus a planning review on product access and expertise alongside targeting and follow-up.
Our view at Makai is straightforward: welcome people warmly, then make the interaction useful. Aloha and operational discipline belong in the same space. Hospitality starts the conversation. A clear commercial purpose gives that conversation somewhere to go.
We create face-to-face experiences designed to capture attention and generate measurable sales pipeline. For CPG and beverage programs, we believe the product conversation should sit at the center of that work. Creative can attract a visitor without answering the questions that matter to a buyer.
That is why we see this outlook as an execution brief rather than a verdict against ambitious design. A striking environment can serve the brand. So can an engaging demonstration. The test is whether those choices support the intended audience and objective.
Our retail demonstrations use trained brand ambassadors to support in-store sales through product trials and real conversations. The same emphasis on useful interaction informs our stance on trade shows: give the product a meaningful role rather than treating it as decoration.
For us, repeatable field execution means keeping the business purpose intact as the experience takes shape. Attention is part of the job. It should not become a substitute for deciding what the program is meant to change.
DiGrigoli’s discussion of expert access makes staffing a strategic decision. The brief needs to address more than who will greet visitors. It should identify how attendees will reach the product knowledge they came for and how that access fits the experience.
The operating implication is to distinguish welcoming people from helping them evaluate a product. Those responsibilities may overlap. What matters is that expertise has an explicit place in the plan rather than being assumed to exist somewhere behind the display.
For a physical product, the article also points toward hands-on evaluation. In food and beverage, our practical reading is to give product trial and the accompanying conversation a clear place in the footprint. The design should support that purpose rather than leave the interaction to chance.
At Natural Products Expo West 2025, we designed and managed a 40 by 20 foot trade show environment for Glanbia. The coordinated space brought together think! and Isopure alongside Optimum Nutrition and Amazing Grass. Our team handled concept and operations as well as staffing and breakdown. More than 14,000 recorded product samples were distributed across the activation stations.
The useful lesson here is coordination across a shared environment. Product stations and staffing were parts of the same assignment, not separate creative ideas. That is the operational lens we bring to the outlook: consider how the space supports each product interaction before judging the footprint by appearance alone.
The sample count describes distribution. It does not establish buyer qualification or sales lift. Keeping those distinctions clear allows an operational result to remain useful without asking it to prove a different business outcome.
A Jack Morton trade show perspective describes the attendee experience as a lifecycle spanning pre-event communication and on-site interaction through post-show follow-up. That framing supports a central point in DiGrigoli’s article: the booth is part of the program rather than the whole program.
For planning teams, the implication is to connect the invitation with the experience and the next conversation. Targeted outreach should reflect whom the brand wants to engage. The on-site experience should serve that audience. Relevant follow-up should continue the interaction rather than ignore why it happened.
A brief grounded in the article’s recommendations would address:
CRM routing belongs in that discussion before the event. Makai’s positioning includes integrated execution from permitting through CRM reporting. From our perspective, deciding how an interaction will be carried forward belongs alongside deciding how it will begin.
For marketing leaders, that makes the handoff a management question rather than only a software question. Internal stakeholders need agreement about the objective and the evidence they expect. A measurement plan covering the field program provides a place to connect those decisions instead of leaving follow-up outside the activation brief.
DiGrigoli argues against using the same success measure for every client. Her examples range from awareness and qualified introductions to stronger customer relationships and sales acceleration. The lesson is not to collect every possible signal. It is to agree on which signals answer the program’s actual business question.
Event Marketer’s coverage of NACS 2026 offers a concrete operational example. It reports that Electrify America tracked engagement across touchpoints that included QR scans and conversations. The brand used that information to inform real-time adjustments against its KPIs.
For Makai, the useful distinction is between evidence that helps manage an experience and evidence that supports a commercial conclusion. An interaction count can describe activity. A qualified lead answers a different question. Neither should be relabeled simply to make the report look stronger.
This distinction also affects what the team needs to understand before doors open. If the objective is qualified introductions, the reporting discussion should stay connected to that objective. If product evaluation is the purpose, the experience and its evidence should reflect that purpose instead.
That is the standard we favor for reporting built around CMO decisions. Return on Investment should not become a decorative label placed over attendance totals. The report should make the relationship between the objective and the evidence understandable without treating every interaction as a sale.
DiGrigoli captures the shift she wants in a direct contrast: move from “here’s what we built” to “here’s what changed because we built it.”
That is a useful standard for the debrief. The build remains relevant because it supported the experience. Product engagement remains relevant because it was part of the objective. But the report needs to explain their contribution rather than stop at a description of the space.
Our reading is that accountability starts with the brief. When the team agrees early on the intended change, the post-show conversation has a clear point of reference.
CMOs and VPs, will you review your next show brief today and confirm who owns the path from product trial to relevant follow-up before approving your 2027 creative?
Food and beverage brand managers carry the day-to-day product trial brief; when Makai runs retail demonstrations, trained ambassadors connect with shoppers through in-store conversations and product trials. For teams confronting inefficient post-event follow-up and CRM routing, Makai designs experiential campaigns aimed at qualified leads rather than badge-scan totals.
30 Years Experiential & Retail Activation Partner for CPG & Beverage Brands | Multi-Market Demos, Roadshows & Costco/Club Programs That Actually Sell
