The Great Bridal Expo

[AMTC]

I'm wondering if anyone has done any Wedding Expos with The Great Bridal Expo? They are National and I just spoke to a rep who said they have Pampered Chef at their shows all over the country. There is a show in Boston, but the cost is phenomenal, and I'm wondering

1) Has anyone done these expos?
2) Did you do it with your cluster or other consultants and if so how many?
3) Did you make enough back on it to justify the costs?

Any input would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

[Leigh0725]

Okay, i was in your boat not to long ago. I talked with my director and she said that at the bridal fairs she has gone to, the costs ended up not being worth the amount of time/work she put into it. She said a lot of the brides to be that are there have their wedding dates set for the next year. She would get a lot of maybes and just getting ideas. Though she had TONS of people at her booth, she got maybe two leads. She had a lead box and went home with 300+ slips and of those, only two girls did registries. I think she spent like $500 for her booth. She said never again. She does smaller bridal fairs so that she can justify the cost. She did the expo twice thinking maybe the first one was just timing of everything. The second time she split with another consultant and the same result.

It could be different for other consultants, but IMO, I wouldn't want to fork over that much money if there is a chance that the end result would be like my directors. For me, I usually don't spend more than $50 for a booth.

HTH!

[dwyerkim]

I looked into the expo here and it was very expensive, I want to say $1200 (keep in mind that is at the convention center in a large city). Just couldn't afford it, and I found the rep I dealt with to be kind of pushy and didn't really answer my questions (like when I asked how many brides, I got "Hundreds, we stopped keeping track (BS) b/c we find it is better to track leads by how much business it generates than a finite number of people and all of our vendors get such great business that they always come back." I'm thinking, ok, you just talked your way around my question when I needed a fairly simple answer that I KNOW you track!

[AMTC]

It is very expensive - she told me $900 if I book within 30 days before the expo with no guarantee of exclusivity, but I could book outside of 30 days and get a bigger booth and a guarantee of exclusivity for $1795 - but it is at a really nice place in Boston - but way beyond my budget - I think I'll stick around the South Shore where I can get a table for around $100!

Unless someone out there can tell me that they have had amazing results.:confused:

[Jennie4PC]

wow $1000 for a booth. That is just crazy. Right now I am paying $225 for the taste of Home booth but I always get my money back with that.

[chefkristin]

wow $1000 for a booth. That is just crazy. Right now I am paying $225 for the taste of Home booth but I always get my money back with that.
You could get others from your cluster to share in the cost. That is what ours did but for a 2 hour slot it was $80.00!!!!

[Kathytnt]

Bridal shows are crazy expensive - I may do a small one here or there but rarely. They talk about doing products trades for part of the fee sometimes but I still have to buy prodcuts for them and it doesn't say you that much money

[dwyerkim]

The fact that she is asking for more $ to guarantee exclusivity smells rotten to me... even the smaller shows give you exclusive rights as a rep from the same company (ie no other pc tables if you have one). I say save your money.

[Chef Bobby]

I did the one in Baton Rouge about a month ago. It was $500 for 5 hours. We had 3 of us there. We got 57 registries all together. It took all 3 of us to take care of the crowd. We had at least two different brides at the table most of the time. The hard part is getting the brides to follow up and do something with their registries.

Bobby

[Dawn4]

I haven't done a Bridal booth yet. From what I've heard it's not worth the high cost of the booth. And I don't know how anyone else feels about this, but as amazing as our BR is it just hasn't caught on yet. Is anyone having luck with them???